That Thing
by Bones365
Summary: Quil reflects on his life with Claire and that thing she always does...
1. Chapter 1

She has always done this thing. Even back when she was, like, two. I think it helps to keep the connection, as if we'll ever lose it, or maybe she wants to know that she has some sort of power over me, even though the power she has over me is way more than physical.

It all started that one day. I walked into Emily's house knowing full well that Claire was there. Maybe today she would fall asleep like she did yesterday. I smiled a little, remembering how cool it was to just watch her. Well, not _cool_ in the usual sense of the word, but it felt right. As long as I was watching her, nothing could happen. It was what I was supposed to do.

I walked through the door and my ears were assaulted by the piercing sound of a two year old tantrum. Claire may have been cool asleep, but the world is tough for a two year old. There are naps to be had and juices to be tasted and just too many things to be explored.

Even in the middle of her hysterical crying, though, nothing could slow that girl down. She was tottering away behind a plastic lawn mower, clutching its handle in one hand and her "planket" in the other. The poor piece of cloth was dirty and tattered, but Claire Bear loved it, so it had found a special place in my heart as well.

My eyes followed her slow, and loud, progress across the living room floor. Emily and Sam had given up, and they, too, were just watching her march back and forth with that little blue scrap of cloth. Sam knew I was there without turning around.

"She's been like this for the past forty-five minutes." He glanced behind his shoulder and winced as the shrieking got worse. "Got any tricks up your sleeve?" just as he said this, Claire managed to wheel the little red lawnmower in the other direction, and caught sight of me. If possible, her sobs escalated even more. Her little planket covered hand reached up to me with clenched fingers, and her speed doubled as she tried to get to me.

I took a step forward and she ditched the little mower altogether, apparently deciding that it was too much work. Her feet were sure at first as the fought their way towards me, but the left one was soon caught on the right. I reached down and turned her fall into a rollercoaster, scooping her into my arms, planket and all. Her free hand reached down and clutched desperately at my wrist, which I gladly gave her.

Claire curled herself up onto my chest, not worried about falling, and buried her head into my shoulder. I could feel her hot tears and God knows what else trickle onto my shirt, but I didn't care. Her fingers fought to get a better hold on my wrist. Her sobs calmed into snuffles after a while, but I didn't care about the noise or the tears or the death grip on my wrist, this was Claire growing, and me growing with her.

It was odd, how sitting with a crying toddler in your arms centers you, but I guess it may be different with me and her. At that moment in time, I was her rock. She knew that it would be okay to curl up and sob, right there on my shoulder. Even after she was sleeping softly, I couldn't let her go. I still remember her little noises and movements. Every once in a while, her fingers would flex in my wrist, but they never once let go. I guess they never _really_ did.

oOo

I guess from that point on, that was our thing. Her little fingers would reach up, not for my hand, but for that little bit of my arm that she had a direct claim on.

Like the time she was five, and some little first grader had pushed her off the swings. Her little eyes filled with tears. After she turned four, Claire never cried like a normal kid. Tears would well up in those pretty brown eyes and they would just fall.

Don't get me wrong, I mean if she really got going, she could sob and scream and pout with the best of 'em, but most of the time she just…kinda…_leaked_ I guess is the best word. There were no sniffles or snuffles. Her voice would be steady, her body unshaken as she told me what had happened, or failed to happen, in her bite sized world.

Anyway, her eyes just started spilling, and I had jumped off the bench to give that kid a piece of my mind, but little Claire marched her way towards me. Her eyebrows were scrunched up in the middle and her lips were set in a concrete mold of anger. Her hand gripped my wrist.

"This is NOT a fun playground!" she informed me as she began pulling me to the car. Her free hand was planted firmly on her hip and her pigtails swung with every step she took. The tears continued to fall.

"Claire Bear, we should go tell that boy-"

"NO! I want to go home." Her fingers tightened on my wrist, "Some people just don't know how to be nice." Her little five year old voice changed into a serious reflection of what she would grow to be. I got little snippets like this from time to time. She would look at me, her eyes vastly profound and let loose a truth so simple that it was elegantly complex and endlessly meaningful.

This was one of those moments. When I could almost, _almost,_ see what my life would be like in years to come. But now was not the future.

I scooped her up in my arms, plopping her on my shoulders to give her some height. Her chin lifted as she surveyed the "no fun" playground from her new, superior perch.

"Listen, Claire Bear, how about we go for ice cream instead. Parks are overrated anyway."

"Yeah. They're sooo overrated." I held in a smile as her voice copied my factual tone. She had no idea what she had just said, but she would probably figure it out and use the word soon. It was a little akward, walking back to the car with my arm stretched above my head for her to hold, but she didn't really notice, and I really didn't mind. I wiped the tears with my thumb as I put her in the car seat. Her hands gripped my wrist tightly for a moment before letting me go. I could hear her sigh as she looked one last time at the swings.

oOo

Like some Proud Parent, I'll always remember the day she went to Kindergarten. Her pigtails swung with her determined steps and her red plastic backpack was hiked up on her shoulders. Her parents and I took her picture, told her to be good, gave her a kiss on the cheek, and sent her on her way.

Watching her go through those doors, my heart wrenched a little. School would change her so much. What would she have for lunch? Would they give her a snack before or after her nap? Did they know that she only liked to be called Claire Bear, or that she only read stories about princesses?

Half of me wanted to march up to that school and have a serious chat with the teachers, or hell, just take her back home. The other half of me needed to let her go. I wanted so badly to see how she turned out.

I sat in that parking lot for the whole four hours she was in there. They let the kids go and Claire was so excited she almost bounced out of her car seat, an impressive feat since I insisted that she wear three seat belts in my car.

"…And then, this girl, Shirley, she told be that she didn't like her grape juice and I told her I didn't like my crackers, and so we switched and now we're friends and then this boy Thomas spilled his juice on my mat and told me that I should trade him 'cause I had a better spot but I told him that I liked my spot too much, and then he told me that if he didn't have the mat tomorrow that he would pour the whole juice on my mat and then I'd be begging him to switch but me and Shirley called him a sissy until he went away but then our teacher…"

On and on she went. Her fingers had captured my wrist as soon as I was done buckling her into the bench seat. Her hand was fluttering over my pulse, squeezing or shaking to emphasize a point in her story.

I listened to every word. I could recite it verbatim right now with her little gasping breaths perfectly placed. I knew everyone in her class _and_ what they wore _and_ what they ate for lunch. I can also tell you that the next day, when Thomas poured an entire cup of juice on her mat, Claire Bear punched him clean in the nose.

I came to pick her up when they sent her home early. Her lip was folded out and her arms were folded up and there was a note in her bag for her parents. I strapped her in, but her hand gripped my wrist before I could pull away.

"_I_ didn't do _anything_ wrong." She told me solemnly. "It was all stupid _Thomas'_ fault." Her tone was so sad, so serious, that I couldn't help myself. I leaned in to plant a kiss on her head.

"I know Claire Bear, and don't tell anyone, but if it were me, I would have punched him, too." Her eyes met mine in surprise and I could feel her tiny fingernails in my arm she was gripping so tight. "But that doesn't mean we can just hit people whenever they upset us." Her brows furrowed.

"How 'bout this, Claire Bear, we'll both promise not to hit anyone who doesn't hurt us first, physically, I mean." Her brown eyes shifted to her still red knuckles. "We'll seal it with ice cream."

I knew I had made the deal. "And Sprinkles." Her eyes rose up to look at me. Of course I was going to let her have sprinkles. I nodded and she let me go.

The next day, Thomas was her boyfriend, and yeah, I let that one slide, cause it was over in a week the whole week long it was _my_ wrist locked in her grip, and really, he _was_ just a kindergartener…


	2. Chapter 2

Claire was everything to me and I was like some sort of freakishly tall and warm big brother, always watching, looking out for her. She was my first priority in everything that I did, and maybe she knew that, or maybe she didn't.

She definitely didn't know that when I got off patrol, I went and looked in on her, just to make sure she was okay. She didn't know that when I was a wolf, the only thing keeping me from running to her was Sam's direct orders. She didn't know that every time there was a leech in the area, I would run around and around her house so often that there is still a beaten path in a perfect circle around the property line.

She didn't know that I was more worried with her safety than I was with my entire pack, but she knew by the age of 7 that I was wrapped around her finger. I remember the first time she figured out she could get anything from me.

I was babysitting while her parents were out of town. They didn't really have a problem with me cause, lets face it, there are worse babysitters out there than a 300 pound wolf that would give his life for your little girl, but anyways…

It was her bedtime. I always let her stay up a bit later than her parents, just cause she liked it and just cause I got a bit of extra time with her. It was about 9:30, and we had just finished watching Nemo, her favorite.

"Quil?" she inclined her head and looked up at me. "Do I _have_ to go to bed? I'm not sleepy! Maybe we could read a story?" Her eyes looked so hopeful, as if her entire being existed for this one story.

I shook my head indecisively. "I don't know, Claire Bear. You've already stayed up pretty late. Aren't you tired?" I gave a fake yawn and pretended to stretch sleepily.

Her eyes narrowed, her brows crunched up, and her mouth stretched into a thin-lipped frown. She wasn't buying it. She shook her head.

"You're not tired, either! You stay up really really late like a grown up and I have to go to bed and miss all the fun and I've never really stayed up late unless it's Christmas and even then I'm all alone in my room." Her eyes wavered and her hand grabbed my wrist. "Don't you want me to be happy?"

Well that just about broke my heart. Her head bowed and a single tear trickled down her cheek. What was I supposed to do? The girl had basically just told me that she thought I didn't love her.

I scooped her up and she looked up at me hopefully. You can't just kill a kid's hope, right? I mean she has to know that she can trust someone, right?

"What do you want to do, Claire Bear?" Her face lit up like a freakin' light bulb, and I just couldn't find it in me to not let her stay up. We ended up watching Nemo again. When she fell asleep, curled up in my arms, I just didn't have the heart to put her in bed. I sat on the couch with her, knowing that I was such a pushover, but really not caring at all.

oOo

The first time she got really sick, I almost died of worry. I came over to take her on our weekly ice cream run, (that girl could pack away more ice cream than me, which is pretty damned impressive) and her mom told me that she had a fever and couldn't go out.

I practically sprinted to her bedroom. After being blinded by the fluorescent pinks and oranges of her walls and bedspread, my eyes focused on her.

She looked so freakin' pitiful. She was laying there, curled up one her right side, coughing and sneezing. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bright with fever. I can still remember it and it still freaks me out.

This was my little Clair Bear. She could climb the monkey bars all by herself and jump off the high dive at the pool without being afraid. She could take on fourth graders and eat a whole pan of brownies by herself. She did not, I repeat, NOT, get slowed down by anything.

But now here she was, shivering under her comforter with a trashcan next to her bed. She looked up and smiled a bit when she saw me.

"Quiw, I don't think I can go out today." She said, using an old nickname for me and looking infinitely sad.

"It's okay, Claire Bear. How about we just stay here? Do you want anything? Soup or some crackers?" I instantly regretted my words. At the mere thought of food, her face turned a pasty green color and she practically threw herself over the side of her bed to vomit into the trashcan.

I rushed over to her, scraping the hair back from her face and holding her as her body was racked with convulsions. She groaned and flopped back into the bed. She looked at me with tears in her eyes as I handed her a glass of water.

"It's so _gross, _Quil." She took a sip and handed the glass back to me, shivering some more and cuddling into her covers. I put my hand on her forehead.

I don't know what I was trying to accomplish from this, seeing as even her feverish body would still feel cool to mine, but when our skin touched, she leaning into my hand and sighed. I cupped my hand around her perfect little cheek, and her shivering subsided a little.

"Come here, Claire Bear." I moved the covers back and slid into the bed with her. She instantly curled around the heat in my body, and I put my arms around her. I figured I was better than an electric blanket any day. Her finger grabbed onto my wrist and she was almost immediately asleep.

I didn't really think about how I barely fit on her little twin bed, or how she would cough right on me, or how I started burning up after, like, five seconds. Eventually her nose started running onto my shirt, and her lips became cracked with dehydration. I wiped her nose and made her drink three glasses of water and a glass of orange juice, but she just puked it up again.

I stayed in bed with her for a day and a half. She was so small and my entire being wrenched to see her so sick. On the third day, her fever broke and she could keep some broth down. Her mom made me go home.

I went to bed and woke up with a runny nose, but my body temp soon killed whatever virus it was. When I saw Claire Bear the next day, she was running around her backyard, playing with her dolls. It was like nothing had ever happened.

She ran up to me, squeezing her fingers around my wrist. "I'm all better, Quil!" I had to smile. Claire Bear was back.

"I see that, Kid. Let's go celebrate." She got a double scoop of ice cream that day, just 'cause I had missed her smile.

oOo

Then, when she was nine, she told me that she was a grown up, as if she needed to. She was cooler than anyone else I knew, but she was still my Claire Bear, except she didn't like that anymore.

"I don't want to be called that anymore." Her eyes and nosed scrunched up like she had smelled something foul. "_Claire Bear_." She shook her head. "It's a little girl's name. I'm not a little girl anymore."

She planted her hands on her hips and tilted her head, practically daring me to say differently. My heart hurt a little. I had thought of that nickname when she was two and her favorite stuffed animal was a grizzly bear bigger than she was. I nodded solemnly.

"Well if you're not little anymore, I guess you don't need a little nickname." She blinked, surprised I didn't fight her. "I guess you won't want to get ice cream with me anymore. That was kind of a kid thing, too…" I trailed off, waiting for the words to sink in. she blinked again. She obviously hadn't thought of that.

"Well, I mean, we don't have to do it all at once." She said cautiously. She looked concerned, I couldn't stand it.

"How about this, we'll keep going for ice cream and you can just tell me when you get too old, okay, Claire?" Her head tilted again to the other side, contemplating how her real name sounded coming from me. She nodded slowly.

"I guess that would be okay." She was very serious for a nine year old, but she knew what she wanted. So we kept going for ice cream and I didn't call her Claire Bear, because that was what she wanted, even though I missed my special name for her.

A week later I was tucking her in bed and her eyes were fluttering closed. "Quil?" She mumbled softly.

"Yes, Claire?"

"You can call me Claire Bear again, I mean, if you _really_ want to. It's not so bad. And no one else calls me that…" Her voice trailed off and her breath evened out. I smiled to myself and kissed her softly on the forehead.

"Anything you want, Claire Bear."

oOo

I adored watching her grow…most of the time. Claire was a force of nature. Nothing could slow that kid down. She's so freakin' smart, and yeah, I guess I'm a bit biased, but she just figures things out so fast.

Like the time she figured out that I was a werewolf. It was the night of the bonfire. Claire was eleven and had been to them so many times, you'd think that it would get boring, but she never complained. Claire Bear never whined or pouted or got tired. She was enthralled.

I would love to watch her. As soon as Billy started the story, her big eyes would get even bigger. Usually she sat on my lap, so I could feel the slight shift in his direction when he started talking about the first of our kind. Her fingers would grab my arm and squeeze when he would get to the part about the big fight.

She was so focused. I swear, even when she was three, she knew that this had something to do with her life. She listened to the words as if she'd get tested later. One night, though, she didn't sit with me. She sat with Emily, watching the fire instead of Billy. When he finished, Claire looked up slowly at me, her eyes narrowed. I returned her gaze. I knew this was it.

That night, as I drove her home, she looked out the window. She looked up at me suddenly, biting her lip.

"Those stories are true, aren't they?" My eyes flashed to hers and she looked at my face steadily. I sighed.

"Claire, you weren't supposed to find out till later."

"So they _are_ true?" Her eyes widened and she sat back in her seat. I pulled the car over to the side of the road.

"Yeah, they are. How did you find out?" I was curious to know how her mind worked, how she would react to this. Oh, yeah, and I was scared to death that she wouldn't want to hang out with me anymore. I turned in my seat, watching her delicate shoulder shrug.

"I was just thinking about the stories, you know? And all of the sudden it kind of clicked about why you are always out at night and sleep so much. It just made sense…" She trailed off and her eyes turned to me, big and wide.

"Are you dangerous?" My heart felt like it was going to wrench out of my chest. I shook my head violently.

"No! Not to you, never to you. I'm not a monster, Claire. I can even control it! I've been thinking about stopping anyways and really it's not that big a deal cause we're only just shape-shifters and not even the real thing. It's actually-"

"Quil shut up!" She was shaking her head back and forth slowly. After a long moment she looked back at me. "What do you mean not the real thing?"

"Well, we can control our phasing, it's not during the full moon. We can change at will."

"Change into a wolf." Her voice was scarily monotone. I nodded, waiting for her to get out of the car, or yell, or scream. She turned her head and looked out at the road. Suddenly, in that light, at that angle, she looked much older than her eleven years, and I didn't know if she could handle this.

Suddenly, though, the moment was gone and she turned her head and looked at me mischievously. I was completely caught off guard.

"What?" I asked.

"I bet I'm the only person in my whole school whose best friend is a werewolf. That's so awesome! Can I see you change?" I was instantly and simultaneously horrified and relieved. I pulled her across the seat and hugged her, laughing.

"No, you can't see me change! You silly girl! You're not scared at all?" She pulled back to look at me, a tiny dusting of freckles rippled as she wrinkled her nose.

"Why would I be scared? You're just Quil." I heaved a huge sigh of relief. She still wanted me, my world wasn't ending. "Besides, I bet there are tons of perks to having a werewolf best friend. Like, could you scare Tara Mackee for me? She was being so mean the other day."

"Claire, I'm not going to scare your friends. What was she being so mean about?" I put the car in drive and eased back onto the road, my heart racing from the past few minutes.

"Well she saw me at the mall the other day and was like, 'Omigosh that top is hideous!' So I totally ditched it, and then she came to school the next day wearing the same one, and she only did it so that she would be the only one who had it…" I listened to her pre-teen babble and smiled.

Yeah. My Claire Bear was undaunted and undauntable. She wasn't scared by anything. Like I said, that girl's a force of nature…


	3. Chapter 3

After then, of course, things got sticky. She actually knew what I was headed off to do whenever I left her house. She didn't like it very much. Once it had set in that I was actually putting myself in danger, and the novelty had worn off, she got serious about it. And when that girl gets serious, she gets serious.

"Quiw?" We were sitting at her kitchen table, doing her pre-algebra homework. At the sound of my old nickname, my head raised.

She was looking at me with her eyes narrowed and her pencil in her teeth. She wanted something. I can always tell from her eyes, that little shimmer they'd get, and of course, my old name.

Damn. It meant that I was about to give her something. "What's up, Claire Bear? Trouble with number seven?" Who was I kidding? The girl knew this stuff better than I did. She probably should have been in advanced trig at the high school or something.

"I was just wondering… like, how many…or…how often do the um…_vampires_ show up in the woods?" she said the word "vampires" like it tasted bad. That's my girl.

"Well, not very often; once every few months, but sometimes more." I didn't try to go back to what I was doing. I knew her better. She needed more.

To prove my point, she set her pencil down and tilted her head. Her brows lowered. "Well, how often do you have to fight them? Like, by yourself?" she looked at me expectantly.

"Claire, I know what you're doing. You should stop worrying." She looked me straight in the face and reached to grab onto my wrist.

"Too late." She said in a whisper. My heart stuttered a little. It was one of those moments, you know? The ones where she just looks so old. In this light, with her eyes looking up at me through those thick lashes, and her head slanted just so, I saw for the first time my future wife.

Not just an older face, or the girl she'd grow up to be, but my Claire. The one I would marry, build a house and a family with. My mind spun abruptly off on a path it had never wandered before. What our life would be like, sitting like this across the kitchen table, arguing over what movie to rent…her winning every time.

"Quil!" her long fingers snapped in front of my face. She looked a bit concerned and miffed at the same time. She'd never not had my attention on her. My every thought and action was her, she didn't understand what had just happened in those two whole seconds that my entire being hadn't been about her.

"What were you just _thinking_ about?" she was a bit outraged, it was so cute and kinda bratty and I had to laugh because that life was so far away from this moment.

"You, Claire Bear. I was just thinking about you." She shook her head but accepted my answer.

"You never answered me."

"I know. Listen, it's complicated, what I do. I have the other guys to watch my back. Just, don't worry, okay?" She looked at me for a minute. Her lips twitched and I knew she still didn't like my answer. Her eyes flicked away and back to mine.

She knew. She knew that if she asked again I would tell her. I'd tell her all the details she wanted to know, and how many I had fought, and all the cuts and bruises and broken bones I'd ever gotten. She knew. I shook my head.

"Please, Claire."

She took a breath. "So, what's twelve times seven again?" I smiled, knowing that it was our first mature moment. Later, I would think about how she was growing up so fast, and how she had looked at me so knowingly, and how she had backed off. It had all me so _grown up_. But in that moment, all I did was look at the calculator.

"Eighty-four."

oOo

Then she turned fourteen. God, it was horrible. She invited boys to her party. _BOYS!_ Like, boys with…hands! And bad thoughts in their nappy little heads. I wanted to strangle all of them, but instead I cooked them burgers and hot dogs and smiled when the asked me if I was related to her.

There was this one in particular. _Tyler_. That boy was a menace. He seemed nice enough, but as soon as Claire, MY Claire Bear, walked into the backyard, he was all eyes and smiles and slicked back hair.

I puffed up a little when she came to talk to me first, but soon, he was there. She smiled when she saw him. And then blushed. I kept flipping burgers. They started talking about math class, and geography, and about Mrs. Atley, their teacher. Soon, the topic moved on to the dance the school was having.

I kept flipping. Shove the spatula under, wrist flick, sizzle, repeat. Under, flick, sizzle, under, flick, sizzle. "Well, I was actually thinking about asking this girl in our class…" Flirty smile. Can't this kid just get up the guts and ask her? It's agony.

"Really?" giggle, hair flip. I almost did a double take. Was Claire flirting?! I was sure she didn't know how to do that. I certainly hadn't taught her, and I spent a lot of time with her…

"Yeah. Actually, it's…" Geezus! Just do it already, kid! "…Uh…you." He shuffled his feet in what girls must think is an endearing way. I just wanted to nail his shoes to the patio. Claire smiled.

"Well that's really good, cause I wanted you to ask me." I smiled as I flipped. That's the way to do it. No stuttering, no shuffling. Just straight up. Eye contact. It was so Claire, I loved it, even though I'd have to seriously intimidate this little boy, she wanted him, so I couldn't really argue.

"Well, good! I guess…we'll…go together…then?" He was still all gawky and slow. I wanted to tell him that he'd already sealed the deal. He could stop the act. Claire nodded and was called away by one of her other friends.

I looked over at Tyler. He heaved a sigh of relief; maybe it wasn't an act after all, but he was too twitchy and nervous for her. She needed a guy to head straight on into the world like she did. I handed him a plate.

"On that dance floor? Watch your hands or I'll cut them off." I gave him a coke and a smile and turned back around, but not before seeing his face go white.

It turned out that he and Claire dated for a month, not bad for the summer after eighth grade, but she dumped him in the end.

"I don't know, Quil. He kept being so nervous! He just needed to chill." She shook her head and I handed her some ice cream. I just nodded and kept my mouth shut. At least she worked it out in the end.

oOo

Life after that heated up pretty quickly for Claire. She got accepted into this really nice little private high school on a scholarship. She was so freakin' excited. She took me with her to buy her new school uniforms. Her eyes were bright as the lady handed her a mess of plaid and white cotton and she practically skipped to the dressing rooms.

The excitement lasted all of about two seconds. I could hear her wail from the other end of the store and a may or may not have knocked two people over to get to her. Just as I ran into the dressing rooms, her curtain was yanked back and she stood there scowling.

"I LOOK LIKE A PLAID POTATO SACK!" she cried, turning to look back at the mirror. "What the hell?! This is nothing like the cute little outfits on T.V.! I know that Blaire and Serena never look like this! They won't even let us were sweaters and stuff over it!" She spun back around to look at me in utter despair.

"Listen, Claire Bear, everyone at that school will look the exact same. It's kinda the point. You're not going there to look good." Her frown deepened.

"You're not even on my side! You have eyes don't you?! You can see how I look in this?!" And she was right. It was stiff and didn't fit her well and it made her look a bit like a boy. I winced in sympathy, which I knew was exactly what she wanted. I just catered to her so naturally, I didn't need to think about it.

"Yeah, ok you're right. Maybe you'll grow into it?" There was no way that I could make this better, even if I tried. And besides, Claire still had that awkward gangly puppy thing that middle schoolers have, where their hands and feet are really big but their legs and their arms are really long and the rest of them is well proportioned? Yeah, that was still Claire, but she'd grow into it. I hoped.

The alternative was that she'd be miserable and uncomfortable for the next four years, and that was unacceptable. Right then her mom came up.

"Oh. Well…" She tilted her head and considered her distraught daughter. "we can't do much because of the dress code, but maybe we can hem up the skirt a bit and then go a size down on the blouse."

Magic words. Claire's face smoothed out and she nodded vigorously. We ended up leaving her mom to buy it all while I bought Claire some ice cream. The end product wasn't so bad. She still looked kinda shapeless and awkward, but you could at least tell that there was a person beneath the fabric. When I dropped her off at school on her first day, as was our tradition, she looked exactly as shapeless and awkward as everyone else, which suited her just fine. But that's a whole other story altogether, her first day…


	4. Chapter 4

OK, well…maybe I should back up a little. Claire spent the whole night before her first day at high school tossing and turning. The little sleep she did get was filled with her mumbling and worrying about clothes and her hair. I just know that she was so nervous up there. I know that her super-brain wouldn't be able to think about how this was the first day for about 150 other kids as well. I know that she never stopped to think that they were just as scared and alone as she was.

I know because I spent the entire night in wolf form under her window, alternately curling up around my nervous, nauseas stomach, running patrols on that well-worn path around her house, or pacing back and forth behind the shrubbery. All I could do was stare. It was the first time that I had ever genuinely not been able to get to her when she needed me.

Part of me felt like I was being ripped in two. God, it was horrible. It didn't matter that I was scared, too, though that only added to the freakin insomniac fire. My Claire Bear was all by herself in that huge bed of hers in her huge room freaking out and I couldn't even do anything about it. I might have let a few whimpers/barks/howls out, just to let her know I was there.

I kept Claire's parents up with all the noise I was making and her mom came out and yelled at me for packing the dirt in her flower bed so tight that nothing would grow. In the end, though, she let me into the house, if only to just get me to shut the hell up.

I went straight up the stairs to her room. Yeah, I knocked a few pictures down on my way up, but when you're about three hundred pounds worth of fur and muscle, some thing are unavoidable. Nosing open the door, I could smell fear, apprehension, and then...finally, relief.

"Quil." She whispered as I stepped up onto her tall four poster bed. I tried not to step on her as I curled up and laid my giant head on her stomach. Immediately, I felt her hands flit quickly back and forth through the fur.

"What if I don't have any friends? Or the classes are too hard? I've never been to a private school before, the rules are probably all different and I don't know any of them. These kids have probably been going to school together since they were kindergarteners! How can I just walk in and try to break into the bonds that they've had for years?! And the outfits are _so horrible!_ They probably look great in theirs, while I will look horrible. My locker will probably stick because they only have two maintenance staff during the day, and I've heard that most of them are incompetent, which will be really bad when I vomit all over my hideous skirt tomorrow because I don't know the rules and that will effectively end any chance I ever had at getting any friends and my puke will lay in the hall all day just to remind me of it. Will you please just enroll me at La Push?"

I know you're laughing, I just know you are, because I would if I were you. But I'm not. I'm not you, but what I am is _hers._

She was so serious about every single thing. She was so sad, like it had already happened. When she was really really emotional, she dropped the valley-girl talk that she'd had since she was in 6th grade and used big words like "incompetent", the kind of words that she was afraid of her friends hearing her use because it would mean she was different than them.

And she was different. Because those other girls couldn't make my heart gallop and my mind whir with images of me marching down to La Push High School and demanding her entrance immediately. They couldn't do that just by talking to me.

Those girls couldn't even get me to look away from the T.V., but for Claire, here I was on a pink bed-spread, knowing I wouldn't sleep, my neck cramping from trying to keep the full weight of my neck off of her, only wanting to comfort her but not knowing how.

Eventually I licked her arm, nuzzled her neck, and settled my head next to hers so she could hear me breathe. It might have been our hardest night together up till then, but soon, her hand clenched around the top of my paw, right where my wrist would be. Her fingers couldn't close all the way around it, and her grip was weak with anxiety, but then she slept.

I didn't. I stayed awake until the alarm rang the next morning, always ready if she needed me. Because I didn't sleep, I know that her hand never left mine all night.

oOo

And that was all just before sunrise! When Claire finally woke up, got dressed and trudged down to the kitchen, she had started to look really green.

Seriously, I hadn't seen her that color since that time I took her to the carnival and she ate a whole cotton candy by herself and then rode the tilt-a-whirl. By the way DO NOT do this with a four year old, no matter how hard they beg you. It is a BAD IDEA no matter how much they make you think that it's a good one.

Anyways, she met her Cheerios with a bit of a grimace, but I knew that she needed to eat. I tried to distract her, but she still wouldn't touch the spoon. I really was about to feed her myself when her mom came in and forced her to eat at least half of it.

When the clock turned 7:30, I looked at her, knowing that she was dreading it and knowing that it was time to go. She gave me a look that half seemed like she was smiling and half like her Cheerios were about to make a repeat appearance. Grabbing her bag, I walked her to the car.

It's a testament to Claire's nerves that she didn't talk the whole time. She always had something to say, even if it was just about the fact that it was quiet. I knew that if her parents had been driving her, she would have tried to act normal, but with me, she didn't have to act. She just sat there, legs crossed, fidgeting with her new shoelaces.

When my old pick-up finally pulled into the drop-off lane, her feet were jiggling and she was taking deep breaths, preparing for battle, I suppose. When she reached for the handle, I stopped her.

Cupping her face in a way I hadn't done since she hit puberty, I looked deep into her eyes.

"You're going to be absolutely fine. It will work out and they will love you and you're gonna love this." She swallowed and nodded, pulling the door open with one hand and gripping my wrist with the other. I watched her walk into the double doors. She really did look like everyone else.

I was tempted to sit and wait in the parking lot like I did her first day of kindergarten, but instead I put my truck in drive and pulled away from the curb. The whole way home, my eyes flicked back to my wrist and the small but deep imprints her fingernails had left there and wondered how she was.

oOo

"Just drive, Quil."

She had thrown her backpack into the bed of my truck and slammed the door closed behind her. Her arms were crossed and her eyes were full.

I just drove. I kept going on the same road for about thirty minutes before the tears started to fall. I jerked the car to the side of the road, flicked it into park, and pulled her across the seat into my lap.

She was squeezed in behind the steering wheel and her skirt was bunched up and her mascara was running and her feet were at a weird angle, but she wound her arms tight around my neck and buried her head in my neck and began to sob.

It was so much more of a helpless feeling than from the night before, because this time I couldn't march down to a school office and demand her acceptance. This was an inner battle and I couldn't do a damned thing about it except to hold her.

Her body shook harder and harder and I rocked her softer, held her closer, shed a few tears myself.

I had never understood my own imprint until then, or the process at least. The connection was astounding. I felt just as deeply and harshly and starkly as she did and she hadn't said a word yet.

As Claire's fingers clenched in my hair, I had to acknowledge the fact that this was going to change us. This school, this year, this moment. It already had. I was no longer a big brother, or a fun playmate. No, I was her rock, utterly and completely. I think that we'd always known that that was the case, but she had never needed me before.

She needed me now.

As the wetness on my shirt grew and the primal sounds coming out of her mouth grew louder, her left hand shot down to grip my wrist. While her right arm gripped me tighter, she squeezed my upper arm. Hard enough that she left a mark, hard enough that I winced a little, but hard enough to feel my pulse, to feel _me_.

Jeez, I don't even know how long we stayed there before she could even talk, but eventually, the shaking lessened and the noises quieted. I sat, waiting.

"It was horrible." Her voice sounded husky and salty, but I was relieved just to hear it, just to know that she was capable of this one simple function.

"No one talked to me the whole day but the teachers. The lunch room was completely full. By the time I got there the seats were taken and I ate in the hallway. Everyone knew each other, except me." Her voice only broke once, but she was still crying, still leaking.

"I'm so sorry" was all I said, all I really could say, as I stroked her hair and forehead, keeping my other hand still for her. We sat for a few more minutes while she finished grieving the loss of her first day.

She slid off my lap and straightened her skirt, but she stayed next to me, plastered to my side and still gripping me, but no longer crying.

"I'm done."

Nodding, I pulled the car once again into drive and pulled out onto the road. She stared unseeingly out of the windshield while I drove to the only place I could think of. When I finally parked at the store front, she blinked and looked around, then to me.

I shook my head, smiling a bit.

"I didn't know where else to go." I said apologetically. I was a bit awkward and I think it was the first time that I ever really was with her, but she didn't notice and I just wanted to make things better.

It must've worked, because the corners of her mouth rose slightly.

"Double double chocolate." I smiled fully at her, and in turn, hers widened, too. I shoved open the door, ready to do a small part for her happiness at our favorite ice cream shop, but she didn't let go of my arm.

I turned back to look at her. For a minute, she was so beautiful, even with make-up smeared across her face. She had a look in her eyes like she knew something I didn't, and a new, mysterious smile to go with it. I didn't quite like it, but it also captivated me. Before I could ask…

"Sprinkles." She said, smiling her new smile, and I just nodded dumbly. Before I could turn though, she tugged on my arm and brought me down to her level so that she could brush a kiss on my cheek.

It was a day with a lot of firsts for us. It was the first day of high school, the first time I stopped being her buddy, the first time she ever cried that hard, the first time she wore her skirt, and yeah, it wasn't the first time she'd ever kissed me, but it was certainly new.

A.N.: Hey guys! Thank you so much for the reviews! It means a lot that you like the story so far. I know this chapter was a bit of a downer, but there should be a happier chapter up soon. Enjoy and Review!!!


	5. Chapter 5

Fortunately for my sanity, the rest of the year went better for her. After about a week, there was a new friend, then two, within a month there was a group of six of them running around like little lipstick monsters all over the town.

There was Mandy, Ellen, Elizabeth, Theresa, Courtney, and of course, Claire Bear. In November, they all went together to the seamstress on a Saturday to get their skirts shortened.

When Claire walked down that morning I thought for a moment that I had swallowed my tongue, luckily this was not the case. Nope, my tongue was still working enough for me to spit out "What the hell did you DO?!" and make some dry wheezy sounds.

She gave me the look. The one that she had developed that she knew I hated, but did it anyway, sometimes just to spite me. It was a "You're an idiot" look, one that I had seen make Jacob Black back into the corner and apologize. One that could bring about anyone of my pack mates to their knees, including me, but she didn't find that out for a few more years. She was still pretty new at it, and I could at least pretend I was unaffected.

"These things are hideous!" She exclaimed, flicking the hem of her skirt, flashing a bit more of her leg, which I had previously thought impossible. "All the other girls do it! And it's sooo much better than going around looking like you have a poorly fitted kilt on!"

"Claire, at least that "poorly fitted kilt" covered you up! Are you serious with this?! You look… you look like…" I stopped, knowing not to cross that line. Her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed.

"Look like what, Quil? A hussy? A slut? What were you going to say? Please enlighten me! As you can see I'm hanging on your every word!" She was getting up in my face now, raising her voice.

"I was gonna say you look like a little stripper! God, Claire, if you shorten that skirt anymore it'll be a belt!" But I stopped. Her face had contorted into perhaps the most angry look I'd ever seen. She was absolutely seething. Her hand raised into a little fist and she punched me in the shoulder. It must have been a hard punch, because it looked like she put some force into it, but I didn't feel it.

The little tap didn't even move me, and I was too shocked to act like I had felt it. I gaped at her.

"Claire, did you just _hit_ me?!" She shook her hand out and scowled.

"YES! Yes, I _hit you!_ And you didn't even feel it! Ugh! I used force! I hit you and not only did you not feel it, but you didn't even move! Didn't even have the decency to pretend like it hurt! I HATE having a werewolf for a best friend! I can't even _beat you up_ properly! AGH!!!!" She stomped out to the car and I was left speechless. I mean, really, what would you have done?!

Well, I'll tell you what_ I_ did. I turned around and followed her out there. I didn't speak when I got in the car. I didn't speak as she huffed and crossed her arms and glared out the window. I didn't speak as I drove, or as I dropped her off, or as she arched her eyebrows at me while getting her bag from the back.

I didn't speak when she and all her friends got detention for inappropriate skirt length. I didn't speak driving her back to the alterations shop to get the hem let down. The next day, I said hello, and she graced me with a smile and it was like nothing ever happened, but it would go down in the books as our first fight and the first time she ever tried to hit me. It was not the last of either.

oOo

Her first year in high school went by really fast. It was all a blur really, a blur of homework, grades, goofing off. Of cramming for exams and late night drives to Sonic to pick up ice cream. Of football games and football players. None of them lasted long, but they were drawn to her like flies.

The boys themselves didn't really bother me until they started to talk to her, or go out with her, or, ya know, look at her. Whatever. I ran off four in two months. It became like a really fun game for me and the pack. We would follow after one of them, stalking them in human and in wolf form.

Just when they'd start to get paranoid, Me and Embry would step out of the trees, or from behind the building or wherever we were. We'd play good cop bad cop, and I was always the bad cop. Always.

Basically, we'd scare the holy living bejeezus out of these poor little high schoolers, and I'd give them the evil eye when I picked Claire up or dropped them off. We'd take bets on how long they would last.

Claire had to know what was going on. I mean, we would play with these guys all through her freshman year and half of her sophomore year. To her credit, she didn't actually stop us until one of her boys actually feared for his life. Which was wise on his part.

"Quil, c'mon! They're just boys, they're just fun."

"Yeah, Claire, It's their kind of "fun" I'm trying to prevent here!" Claire threw up her hands and dropped her head back on her neck. We were walking along the beach, putting off homework.

"Why, God? Why?! I'm cursed by having the most protective best friend in the world!" she turned to look at me. "I know what I'm doing. Just trust me. I know you don't trust them, but it's just a distraction."

I asked her what she needed to be distracted from, but she wouldn't tell me. A few weeks later, I was picking her up and she was talking to one of them. His name was Chet (which is ridiculous), and yes, I do remember all their names. I was about to go run interference, but something stopped me.

I think maybe it was the way they were standing together. He was bending towards her and her head was tilted back a bit to see him (Claire is what I like to call "vertically challenged"). He said something and she laughed. The was he was looking at her, too. It was so devoted, adoring. When she laughed or said something, he lit up, like it was his whole freaking mission in life to make her happy.

I watched them for a while before realizing that I was sitting hunched over behind the wheel of my truck literally growling and shaking, so close to phasing. I had to release the steering wheel, because I had bent it. I was so damn angry, but the twisted thing was that I could totally see what Claire saw in that asshole.

He was soaking her up, practically worshiping her, and all he was doing was talking to her outside of the school. But that was MY job. This little boy didn't even know the first thing about Claire.

He wouldn't know that her weakness was science, even though she was still better than most people at it, or that she was still kind of afraid of the dark, or that she wore two different kinds of perfume on and off, just because they suited her mood, or that…

Claire looked up and saw me seething. Her eyes widened and she started walking towards me, saying something to Chet, even as she was walking towards me. When she got in the car, neither one of us spoke, cause I was too pissed and she knew me better than to try and do anything about it.

We drove.

Fast.

For a really really really long time.

The whole time, all I could think was, "That's what Claire needs, wants. She wants a guy to hang on her every word, to be completely into her. What Claire did not need was an old wolf hanging around and telling her what to do and scaring off boys. I pulled of the road and parked at the beach.

I yanked the keys out of the ignition and the thought that I was jealous floated around in the back of my mind, but I pushed it to the side because suddenly Claire was opening my door and pulling me out of the car, taking my hand and walking me down the beach. We stopped and sat down in the sand. She didn't say anything.

"So, Chet." Yeah, I was particularly eloquent that day.

She snorted and bobbed her head up and down. "He's nice." Was all she said.

"He looked like he…really liked…you." I had to force the words out of my mouth. Her brow creased, but she nodded again.

"Do you…like…him?" Again, the words were pushed out of my gritted teeth. There was a pause, and then she turned and looked at me. Her eyes were narrowed and a little smile flitted across her lips. All in the same instant, she managed to look appraising and completely happy. I've always wondered what she was thinking, then, but to this day she won't tell me.

She reached out for my hand, which I gave her, and held my wrist, stroking her thumb over my pulse. She looked out over the water.

"I like you more."

My heart thudded and a shot of adrenaline soared through me. My pulse was racing and blood rushed to my head, making me kind of light headed. If I was the fainting sort, I always thought that that was what it would feel like. I swallowed. Hard.

I thought really long about what I should say next. Maybe that I liked her too much, that there was one moment today, sitting in that parking lot, that I had realized that I liked her in a very different way than I have in the past. I thought about telling her that she shouldn't even bother with other boys, because I was the one she should end up with anyway. I almost told her about imprints, about how we were soul mates.

Instead, I kept silent and put my arm around her. She snuggled into my side, leaning all of her weight completely against me. I brushed my lips over her head, a move I'd been doing since she was three, but now it had a completely different meaning and we both knew it, but neither of us said anything.

The next day, when she came down to the car, I was nervous. It was too early, I thought, for all these feelings to start cropping up. I needed more time with just Claire, just to be her best friend, not her boyfriend. When she came out of the house and down the walk and into the car, I studied her, gauging my reactions to her.

I was fine. I felt like any other day. It was just me and Claire driving to school.

I never saw Chet again.

oOo

Homecoming came and went and then prom and she decided to go with her friends, which was fine. For me it was just a day of sitting in Claire's room, watching her curl her hair, paint her toes, and glob layer after layer of pointless makeup onto her face.

It was so surreal to me, that day. Here we were, having a completely normal conversation. We were completely in Quil and Claire time, laughing, finishing each others' sentences, eating chips, but on top of all of that was her primping. Try as I might, I didn't understand it.

"Why are you doing all of this?" I asked her. She looked at me from under the curlers.

"Doing what? Painting my nails? Or sitting here talking to you?" She raised her eyebrow at me and smirked. As Claire got older, she seemed to be developing a bit of a smart mouth, which I just loved.

"All of it." I looked around at all the pots and jars and brushes and hair stuff. "It's so unnecessary! You look fine by yourself. Why do you need this?"

She bent down to swipe some red paint over her toenails. "It's just what girls do." She shrugged, "It makes me feel pretty." She was carefully avoiding my eyes. That girl has more evasive maneuvers than a fighter pilot, I swear, but she had to know I wouldn't let that one go.

"Claire, you _are_ pretty." She sighed and capped the polish.

"You don't think you're the least bit biased in my favor, there? You've been looking at me every day for the past sixteen years, but can you really say that you still don't see me as a little girl?" She crossed her arms over her bent knees and rested her chin on them. I sat back and forced myself, for just a moment, to look at her like she was, without our past.

She _was_ pretty. Long, dark hair, pretty eyes, straight teeth. Her face was round and friendly, her legs were long. She had graceful hands and tanned skin. Her face had a few blemishes, but now they were covered by makeup, and weren't as noticeable.

I tried not to think about how her straight teeth were because of the dreaded braces she had just gotten off a few months earlier, and the retainer on her nightstand. I tried not to think that the reason her skin was so tanned was that she loved to be outside, her legs were toned because she constantly raced me up and down hills, just to see if I'd let her win (which I did). I tried not to think of the holy hell those blemishes had raised in her life: the immediate purchase of seven different acne creams and medications, the hormonal tears about how she was a pizza face.

When I didn't think of those things, I saw what I had known for years, but in a completely different light. The scar on her knee from where she fell off her tricycle wasn't just a memory. I wondered if it still bothered her. I wondered if it had hurt very much when she had gotten her ears pierced, if the little mole on her elbow ever bothered her.

The more I looked, the more questions I had. Suddenly this little girl that I had known for years, that had been around ever since my world truly began, was no little girl.

She was just Claire. Young, yes, but funny, intriguing, and, the more I looked at her, beautiful. Not pretty. Pretty was for four year old Claire in her favorite hat, or seven year old Claire wearing new sneakers and a missing tooth. This Claire was gorgeous, and I knew I'd never be able to look at her the same way again.

Which was just absolutely petrifying. What I had been able to put off a few months ago, the feelings and complications, came flooding back, hitting me like a Mac Truck. And I just sat there in stunned silence. She looked concerned all of the sudden, and I wanted to tell her that there was no need. Everything was perfect when we were together, when she was sitting in front of me looking so beautiful, but of course I couldn't, and even if I could have, I couldn't remember how to move my lips.

"Quil?" She leaned forward and, looking back, I'm fairly sure that I had a small stroke. She had been wearing a little yellow tank top and some cotton shorts, trying not to melt in the summer heat.

But as she leaned forward, I could suddenly straight down her little yellow tank top and straight to her…

_Holy shit! _All I could think was, "How had those gotten there? And When?!" I remembered when she was eleven and got her first training bra, but these were…I mean her boobs were just so…

I jerked my gaze away and stood up so fast that I knocked the chair over and spilled chips and Gatorade everywhere. She cried out in surprise and I whirled around automatically to make sure she was ok, but that just meant that I could look at her again, watch her step closer to me, rise up on her toes and brush her cool hands across my forehead, hear her ask if I was ok.

I saw up close her beautiful brown eyes, felt her soft skin, the worry about me. I took a breath and somehow managed to pull her hand away from my face without jerking her up against me.

"Sorry, I just… ah… remembered something?" Even to my own ears my excuse sounded lame and half-assed. "Um… I have to go to see Sam about something. Are you good here? You need anything?" Even after this epic life-change, I couldn't just walk out on her. I had to take care of Claire, who was, suddenly, no longer my Claire Bear.

"No." Her eyes were narrowed so that they were practically slits. She crossed her arms, boosting her breasts up higher, so perfect and round and…

"Great!" I practically shouted at her, taking off down the hall, down the stairs, down to the forest floor, exploding into wolf form.

Paul and Jake were out, and immediately picked up on my thoughts. Sometimes it was really good not having to say stuff. They were on either side of me when we burst into Sam's house, causing Emily to scramble off of him (they had been doing God knows what on the couch), but at least they were clothed. Sam shot up, rounding on us, ready to rain hell down for the interruption.

"What the Hell…?"

"I love Claire." Sam stopped short and his eyes widened.

"Shit."

Yeah, that about summed it up.

"Well, yes. She's your imprint isn't she? You've loved her since she was two…" Emily trailed off, not understanding. Sam was helping me to the couch. I was shaking a little and couldn't get the picture of Claire leaning over me out of my head.

"She has boobs." My voice was strained, breathy, and Emily gasped.

"You mean that you're…_IN_ love with Claire!" She got it.

I was shaking my head no, but she was right. There was a long silence, with the only sound Sam in the kitchen calling the rest of the pack in. I was in love with Claire. Jake sat down next to me and clapped me on the back.

"It's a bitch, when it happens." He would know, but he only had to wait like, what, a month before he and Renesme were holed up in her little cottage house messing around because she matured so much faster, and now they were holed up in _his_ little cottage house in complete marital bliss but…

"God, she's SO gorgeous." Embry walked in, having been called by Sam.

"Claire?" He asked, "Yeah, she is. I'm surprised you never noticed. She matured _really_ quickly. What is she now? 36 C? 38?" He lifted his hands to his chest, illustrating Claire's chest.

And just like that, I was strangling my best friend. I had jumped across the room and slammed him into the wall. There was a crunch of plaster as said wall caved in, and Embry was pressed up against the bare wooden beams of the house. My hands were gripped around his neck.

He was trying to throw me off. I can still remember that. I can remember him hitting me a few times, but it wasn't until three more sets of hands began to yank me back that I came to myself and released him.

His face was purple and as soon as I let him go he dropped to his hands and knees and started this gasping/coughing that just made me feel horrible. Still, though, I hated him.

"Don't ever EVER talk like that. I will…" I couldn't think of what I would do. I was still seeing red and Claire's tank top.

"You'll kill him like you almost did just now?!" Sam was furious, and I can't blame him, but, still, a was shaking hard, trying not to phase. I took a few breaths and dropped back onto the couch. Dropped my head into my hands.

"It's too early." My voice was oddly calm, now. "It's too soon, she needs more time, she's not-"

Emily cut me off. "If you feel this now, it means she is. You're her imprint. You adapt to what she needs, whether she knows it or not. Right?" She looked at Sam, but both he and I were shaking our heads.

"Right now, Quil is thirty-two. Claire is sixteen. Aside from her not even being physically mature, yet, it's still a legal issue." Emily's eyes were pitying now, and she went to get me something to eat. Sam squatted down in front of me. "Is it going to be hard for you to see her?" My head shot up.

He was crazy. Hard for me to see her?! It was hard for me _not_ to see her! It was killing me, now, and I'd only left her fifteen minutes ago. While I could see where he was coming from, my entire body, mind, and soul was screaming at me to run back to her, to drag her off, caveman style, and lock her away somewhere safe, alone, far from everything else. Maybe a little house, or an apartment, or, oh, maybe a hotel room?

Yeah. And maybe while we were there I could rip her little yellow tank top and teeny tiny cotton shorts to shreds. After that…

"NO!" I barked out, answering Sam and trying to stop my train of thought. "I can do it. It'll be fine. I'll just have to wait." I kept down that road for a few more minutes, trying to convince my pack and myself that I could do it. I was only half successful because by the end of the night, I still wanted to throw her over my shoulder and make for Canada.

I walked home slowly. Here's the tricky part. My mind said I was going home, I had informed my feet of that fact, but I ended up outside of Claire's window. She wasn't home from prom yet. I frowned and looked through the glass and her alarm clock. It was one A.M. Her curfew. She should be home. I was already turning around to go find her when I heard a car pull up. I snuck around to the front bushes. Yeah. I had become _that guy_ who sneaks around girls' bushes.

The car was unfamiliar. I thought she had driven to prom with Mandy? Mandy had a Honda Civic. This was a Ford F150. And there was a boy driving it. And he was wearing a suit and opening Claire's door for her.

I started growling. I stopped growling cause I had to hear what they were saying as they walked to the door. Claire was talking, her voice a bit hoarse.

"Thanks so much for driving me home. It was really nice." The scum of the earth answered her.

"No problem. Mandy was way to drunk to drive. It's just was well that she sleeping at Alex's. I just couldn't leave you stranded." Ok, well that was nice, but he was still an ass as far as I was concerned.

"Yeah, I'll kill her later for that." Claire chuckled and the sound had strange and wonderful affects on my body. The kind of reactions I can't really talk about in polite company. Or any company. "Anyway, it was really great of you. You'll get a thank you fruit basket or something." He laughed like an idiot, which he was.

"As long as it has kiwi." They were both laughing now at some joke I didn't know. I scowled, growling under my breath. Their laughter pattered off. "But really, a fruit basket isn't necessary. Maybe a thank you date?" They jerk sounded hopeful. I wanted to rip his vocal chords out.

Claire paused. "Listen, I'm really sorry, but-" He cut her off.

"It's Quil, right?" Hearing my name come up surprised me, but it was a dim emotion, completely eclipsed by my overwhelming desire for her to say, "Yes. It's Quil. I'm in love with him and I never want to see you again, you're ugly and stupid." Or, ya know, something along those lines. But she didn't say anything.

She shook her head and smiled. Kissed him on the cheek and said good night, disappearing into her house. Both me and the guy stayed frozen where we were for a few minutes. My brain was going crazy. Did the head shake mean no? I _wasn't _ the reason that she didn't want to go out with him? Not that I blamed her. He was repulsive with his square jaw and floppy hair and model-perfect features.

But she hadn't denied it, either. Not with words. And with Claire _everything_ was with words. She was a chatterbox, but that was ok because she always had something great to say. I can only guess that the guy on the porch came to his senses and realized that he wasn't worthy of even being on Claire's front step, and left.

I crawled back around the house to Claire's window. She was already in bed. Her red prom dress crumpled on the floor. Her lights were off, but I could still see clearly enough to see that she was curled in a little ball, her breath evening out. She was falling asleep fast and I was falling deeper in love with her even faster.

The way her chest rose and fell was so perfect, rhythmic, soothing. It was miraculous. I watched outside her window until the sunrise when Embry came to get me. The bruises around his neck were almost gone. I never apologized for them, but as he pulled me into our house, pushing me onto the couch, I was grateful that he had figured out where I was. I know that if it weren't for him, I would have stayed outside her window until she woke up, and I wasn't really sure what would have happened next, if that had occurred.


	6. Chapter 6

The next two or three days were hard for me.

Ok, so actually it was only two days, three hours, seventeen minutes and fifty-six seconds, give or take four milliseconds…

Yeah, that was how long I went without seeing her. It was a record for us, since the last time we had been apart for over 24 hours was when Claire was seven and went on vacation with her family. I had come running into their beach house about the same time Claire had started crying that she missed me. We hadn't tried it since then.

But I really didn't have an option here, did I? The next few years was going to have to try not to scare her, try not to take things too far, try not to lose my head. I told myself that two years was easy. I could count them on one hand.

1…2… see? Easy! But after I woke up on the couch 7 hours after Embry had dragged me away from the window, I felt like a rope in the middle of a game of tug-o-war.

Part of me wanted to run to her, to sprint. I wanted to be with her as soon as possible. To materialize into her presence and just look at her or talk to her or hold her. Scotty, beam me up.

The other half was telling me to stay away. Just don't even think about her. I didn't know if I would be able to stop myself from opening my mouth and spitting words at her. Things like, "I love you," and "You're my imprint and that means you're my soul mate and I never want to be out of your sight, ever," or "Would you mind if I took your clothes off?"

I knew from the other guys what happened when they found their imprints. It's like a huge rush of hormones. I used to get so sick and tired of having to listen to they guys thinking dreamily of their mates, and their mates without their shirts, and what they and their mates did last night on the couch (I now refuse to sit on Paul and Jared's sofas).

I had always thought it was disgusting. I think it was because since the object of my affection was three, I reverted back. Suddenly the things that were important to me were three-year-old things. Barbies and tiaras and protecting her so that she could be able to enjoy those things. Ice cream. Yeah, ice cream was a big concern of mine back then.

But now it was happening to me. It was like going through puberty all over again, except my voice didn't crack. Suddenly all I could think about was Claire. And I know you're thinking that it was only physical stuff that I was thinking, but honestly, it wasn't.

I was completely in awe of her. How she had handled that guy on her front porch. How smart and funny she was. How we liked all the same movies and music how she was fearless and so straight-forward it killed me. Yeah. I thought about that.

The physical stuff, too, of course, because I could see just exactly what I had been missing, overlooking for so long. Or not overlooking, but just un-looking, if that makes sense. Yeah. That sounds right. Un-looking. In my mind I was still her buddy, her friend, her brother and obviously brothers don't just think things like, "Wow, her legs are really long. I wonder how they would feel if they were tangled up with mine?"

Yeah, trust me, those weren't things that I had been thinking before, but now those thoughts were all crammed up in my head along with all of my past memories of Claire, my new amazement of her, and all the pack stuff, which took up a considerably smaller portion of my head.

I sat there on the couch for hours, I think, battling with myself. _Go to her, no stay here, go get something to eat, no! if you get up you'll just start running over there. Stay seated!_ On and on until I figured out a plan.

My problem here was that when I was around Claire, all the inappropriate thoughts and wants and needs would attack me, rendering me an idiot, right? So my plan was this: spend a few hours not thinking about Claire, empty my head of it all, so that when I saw her, there would be more space in my mind for decency, even with all the new, contraband thoughts leaking in.

Perfect.

I sighed and sat back on the couch, ready to settle into some mind-numbing TV. A few hours and I would go over and see Claire, not long, just enough to get my fix for the day, then go back home. I clicked on the flat-screen.

It was on Grey's Anatomy. Claire's favorite show. Ok, I needed a new show, since I was trying not to think about her. I clicked up a channel. Disney. For a while I watched a Hannah Montana re-run. The girl was about thirty, now, but her old show was still the most popular program.

I watched Miley and Jackson's antics for about five minutes before I realized that I was thinking about the day we had had the dish installed that would give us Disney. I had done it for Claire. _Whoops!_ Ok. No problem. Don't watch Disney, it reminds me of her too much.

I surfed till I found the news. Yeah. Death and destruction and the stock market. Perfect. The anchor was saying, "…we don't actually know what the motive is at this time, but it is perfectly clear that…"

The word "clear" kind of sounded like Claire, and just like that she was invading my mind again. I sighed and gave up, popping in an old horror flick.

I had watched it with Claire a few months before, and we liked it so much I had bought it. My whole plan was shot out the window, anyways, so I figured I could sit back and pretend to watch, all the while remembering how Claire had flinched or gasped or laughed outright at the action on the screen. I thought about how I should call her and see if she wanted to come over and see it, again. My hand reached in my pocket for my cell, but I decided it was a bad idea. Once I heard her voice, there was no telling what I would do.

The phone was still in my hand, still in my pocket, when it started ringing.

"_I'm a Barbie girl, in a Barbie wo-o-orld…" _that meant it was Claire. I flicked the phone open and brought it to my mouth while thinking that I should ignore it, but I couldn't ignore her.

"Hello?" I asked, flinching, waiting.

"Hey!" There it was. Her voice, like silk or honey or whatever other analogies you want to make. She had a perfect set of vocal chords. Just another one of her miracles. "What's going on?"

I paused. How to answer? _Oh, nothing. Just sitting around trying not to think about you and your bra. _Right.

"Nothing." Niiice, smooth, perfect. Keep it cool. There was a pause on the other end.

"Um…ok. Where are you?"

"Home." Yes! Single-syllables were the key. Another pause. a nervous laugh.

"Great. Me too. Is there something, uh, wrong?" She was confused. And suspicious. I had to up my game.

"No, no, I'm great! Really, I was just watching a movie, I was distracted." Another pause. A long one and I realized my mistake.

"Distracted?" Her voice was skeptical. I winced. _Big_ mistake. I never got distracted from Claire, I was distracted _by_ Claire. Yesterday, before any of this craziness had gone down, I would have paused it or muted it or shut off the TV, but I was never _distracted. _I couldn't think of anything to say to fix it, so I ignored it. Another good plan.

"Do you need something?" There was a huff of air over the line. I could just see her, frustrated, maybe a little hurt, brows furrowed, frowning into the phone.

"Uh…no. But it's Sunday." I squeezed my eyes shut. Shit.

"Yeah. It is." Back to monosyllables. Another pause. When she spoke again this time she sounded less sure of herself.

"Well, on Sundays you usually come over… Is there pack stuff happening?" Her voice was softer. I sighed.

"No, no pack stuff. I just got caught up in the movie?" I said it like a question, like I wasn't completely sure what the hell I was doing spending time watching this movie and not with her. Which _was_ kind of true.

"Ok." She sounded a little better. "Well then I'll just leave you to it and see you later." She did _not_ say it like a question. There literally wasn't a day that went by that I didn't see her.

But even just listening to the sound of her voice, with her 3.62 miles away from me, I just knew that I wouldn't be able to handle being with her. At least not today.

"Um, maybe." No pause this time.

"'_Um, maybe?!' _What the hell, Quil?! What is going on?!" I felt like I was gonna throw up.

I scrubbed my hand over her face and had a split-second battle between her wants and my needs. I think it was the first time in 16 years that mine actually won out.

"Listen, Claire," my throat closed up around her name, "I…Some stuff is happening…and, um…I need to think for a while, so….if, um…see, I can't really, tell…you…?" Again with the questions. But she saved me.

"Oh. Okay." Her voice was soft and I wondered what she was thinking, but I had a pretty good idea. I had always been so about her, so centered on _her_, that her problems had been my problems, I'd never really had any of my own. The irony, though, is that even now, my problems now were still about her, but she didn't know that.

"So, I guess you can just call me….whenever?" Now she was asking the questions. I felt horrible making her feel so insecure, especially because I was all about making her feel secure, but just now, I knew this was for the best.

"Yeah. Later. Bye, Claire." I snapped the phone shut and died a little. I launched myself out of the couch and paced around the room. I looked at my watch. It was two in the afternoon. I've never been a math person, but I could at least figure out that she'd be in bed by twelve. I only had ten hours before she would be unconscious. Then, at least, there wouldn't be the temptation to go and see her. I mean, I could look at her, but not talk to her, which is what I really wanted.

Perfect. I knew I couldn't see her awake, so I'd wait until she was _asleep_ to not see her and it would be so much easier. And I know, I know, it sounds crazy and makes absolutely no sense, but hey, my brain was not all in one place at that moment.

I flipped open my phone and dialed Jared.

"Hey. Let me cover your shift today."

"What?!" Yeah. If memory serves it _was_ the first time any of us had asked for _more _work.

"Yeah. Spend some time with Kim. I'll do it." He agreed and hung up fast, like it was all a joke and I would take it back. But I didn't. I strapped my shorts to my leg and phased. Then I ran.

I ran really long and hard and honestly, I can't remember where I went. It was like the time Jake took off for so long, I was just trying to get away from her, even though all I wanted was to get closer.

I ran an entire loop around the Rez, but since that brought me close to her house, her scent paths, I switched to the Forks route. For thirty-six hours, that damned town was the safest in the world. When I started getting weak, I caught a deer, drank some water, took little naps under trees, all to try not to think of her.

I started feeling the physical repercussions of not being with her. My breathing got shallow, my chest tightened, even as it felt like it was splitting in two. My heart got weaker and louder at the same time. After hour forty, I was limping back home when Jake and Leah found me. They had to practically carry me home. I collapsed onto my bed. I fell asleep as hours forty-one through fifty rolled by.

oOo

Nine hours and fifty-nine minutes later, I was outside her window. She was still awake. She was pacing back and forth across her floor, phone to her ear. I could hear every word she said.

"I swear, Mandy. It's the weirdest thing. I didn't see him today. _AT ALL! _I talked to him once, Sunday, and it was just long enough for him to tell me he had some "stuff" going on and hang up. He _hung up_ on me, Dee! He wasn't answering his phone at all today, and even when I called Jake he said I should leave it alone. I'm starting to worry."

There was a pause and I suddenly couldn't breathe. Adrenaline was spiking through my system. I had hurt her. All my senses clarified like they do in a fight. I could hear everything, her breathing, her heartbeat, the air conditioner, and the little whine on the other side of the phone that was Mandy.

I felt nauseous and all I could think about was getting to her. I saw the window was unlocked, but the sudden acceleration of her heart stopped me from entering.

"No." she whispered, plopping down on her bed. I could suddenly smell her fear, distress, and I had to get to her, but then her words stopped me again.

"You really think…But why wouldn't he tell me if he had…" Her hand covered her face and she sank into a little ball on her mattress. "I have to go." She whispered it so quietly that I had no idea if Mandy actually heard it or not, but I did.

And as the first tear fell free of her fingers, I was hopping over the window-sill, rushing to her. She threw herself around me, her arms around my neck, her legs around my waist, and even though this is exactly the position I'd been hoping for days we wouldn't get into, sex was the farthest thing from my mind.

I turned and sat on the bed. She was absolutely clinging to me and crying, leaking, like she did. I told you before how she does that. How she can be completely functional except for the tears streaking down her face.

I pulled her closer to me, probably too close, but she needed it. Her head was buried in my shoulder and I stroked her hair even though my hands were shaking with the intensity of being around her again. We didn't speak for a long time, and when we did, she spoke first.

"You're a jackass." I huffed out a laugh and squeezed my eyes shut, dropping my head onto her shoulder, but her hands came around to lift my jaw so I was looking into her eyes.

She looked so sad that all I wanted to do was to take that look off of her face. I wanted to kiss her, reassure her that I wouldn't be leaving again and that whatever had scared her on the phone wasn't going to hurt her because I was here.

"Mandy thinks you have a girlfriend." I could hear her heart quickening again.

"She's wrong." I stroked my thumbs down her jaw, taking in her face up close since this would probably be the closest I'd be able to get for the next few years. "You have no idea how wrong she is." Her eyes cleared, but the sadness was replaced by relief, a little bit of shock.

She knew exactly what I was talking about.

She opened her mouth, but shut it. We looked at each other for a few minutes, my eyes telling her everything she ever needed to know. She stood up abruptly, but kept hold of my wrist, pulling me with her. She crossed to the light, turned it off, then towed me back to her bed.

We laid there all night and didn't say anything and after a while she slept, but I just held her and thought "_oh shit." _And "_I'm so lucky." _Over and over until the blurred and I didn't think anything at all and just held her.

oOo

She woke up early the next morning, and I was still there. Having her sleep with me was such a priceless experience, and I could tell she felt it, too. Her eyes widened when she looked up into my face, and for a minute, I could see the little kid she used to be, so vulnerable and happy and hopeful.

It was suddenly so weird for me to think of her like that and still look at her like this, and I made a face. She laughed softly.

"What are you thinking about?" I could tell she was actually curious, and I was gonna answer her, I swear, but her fingers were suddenly hesitant on my arm, stroking, and my brain sidetracked, condensed until all I could take in was the feeling of her skin on mine and the resulting goose bumps. She pinched me lightly.

"Quil!" I chuckled and snapped back to attention to her.

"I was thinking about you as a kid." She groaned and covered her face with her hands. I laughed again as I pulled them off, only to have her roll away from me. I rocked her back to me and we had a little fake fight before I could get her settled back where I wanted her. I stroked her hair back from her eyes.

"Don't think of me like a kid. It just makes this harder." Her hand fluttered between the two us. I scoffed.

"This is hard?" And it really wasn't. Being with Claire like this was effortless, so easy you'd think we'd been this way for years. It was just one of our phases. Like the brother phase or the buddy phase, but this one was different and so much better.

Claire laughed. "No, I guess it's not."

"It wouldn't matter, anyway." I said, settling her closer to me, so that I was facing her. Our faces were inches apart. She frowned.

"It wouldn't matter when we're…" she gestured again between us, "like this, that you're thinking of changing my diapers?" She cringed. "That's kind of sick, Quil." I laughed in her face. She blinked at me.

"First of all, I'll have you know, I never changed your diapers. I potty trained you, which is hugely different! Second of all, I'll go ahead and say that the potty training was way worse than changing diapers, because you blatantly refused to sit on the toilet by yourself." I put a finger on her lips when she tried to stop me. "Third and finally, that wouldn't matter even if I _had_ changed your diapers, because though I love and cherish all of my memories of baby Claire, you and her are two different people to me. Just with the same past."

She was silent for a minute.

"You do realize that makes absolutely no sense." She looked up at me skeptically.

"Of course it does!" I argued as the first light touched the ceiling. "It's just…" But I stopped. I was about to say, "It's the way the imprinting screws around with my brain." I had stopped myself at first because the words "screwed around with" 1) were sexual and 2) had negative connotations, and imprinting on her was in no way negative.

Then I remembered. I remembered that the whole reason I had been saying "oh shit" over and over in my head was that she couldn't know about the imprint till she was eighteen. And that she was only sixteen. And that I had been practically forbidden by my pack leader to be around her "like this" (insert Claire's fluttery hand gesture here).

"What?! You know I'm really starting to hate that little habit you're developing." Yeah, she was still kind of a brat which actually kind of worked for me. With that thought, I sat up real fast. She sat up, too, not joking anymore.

"What's wrong?" She asked, touching my arm. Now that I had thought about all the reasons I shouldn't be in bed with her, it brought back all those reasons I _wanted_ to be in bed with her. _Sixteen, sixteen, sixteen…_ I kept chanting in my head. I looked at her.

"We can't do this." She snapped her head back, cocked it to the side.

"Excuse me?" Like she had misheard me. She hadn't.

"Yeah, we can't do this." I really did do her fluttery little hand gesture as I got up out of the bed, which killed me a little, but I needed some space. "First of all, you're sixteen. Second of all, I'm thirty. Third of all, it's pack rules." I was all about the lists that morning.

"It's a pack rule that we can't be together?" Ok, well she was right, it was a bit far-fetched, but it was the truth. She didn't realize how odd a case we were. But she continued. "Besides that, I figured out a long time ago that there was something going on with us. And about every other couple in the pack, so doesn't that give us age-immunity, or something? And besides that you look about twenty-four, which is not anywhere close to thirty."

"It's closer to thirty than sixteen is. And yes, believe it or not, we _are_ in the pack's laws.

I'm practically under orders as it is-"

"Practically isn't actually, Quil. And why didn't you think of these laws _before_ you got in bed with me?" I winced at how that sounded. She was sitting in the middle of her big bed, legs crossed, sheets around her waist, looking up at me with part hurt and part anger and a little bit of confusion.

I closed my eyes as I slumped back down sideways across her bed, right in front of her crossed legs. I groaned. And rolled to my back.

"Cause you get to my head." I slung an arm across my eyes, wondering what in the hell we were going to do now. I knew there was going to be a huge ass kicking from Sam, as well as probably half of the pack. Okay, all of the pack. I was gonna have to set all this straight with Claire before I walked away. I couldn't have any repeats of tonight. I'd have to go talk to her parents. _Shit_. I would have to-

But a tiny voice above me stopped my buzzing head.

"I do?" I cracked an eye up at her. Her eyes were wide in her face and the beginnings of a smile were tilting her lips up. She was frozen, her hands clenched in her lap. I couldn't help it. She looked just so happy and hopeful. My fingers snaked around her wrist and I nodded, pulling her down to me.

Surely just _one kiss_… but right before her lips touched mine, my other hand came up and pushed her shoulder back, just enough that I could jack-knife off of the bed. I walked to the other side of her bed and shook my finger at her.

"See?! _That_ would be you, _getting to my head._ Geezus, Claire, all you have to do is sit there and look at me and I'm practically jumping you!" but she was smiling and absolutely unrepentant as she chimed:

"Practically isn't actually, Quil." Mimicking our earlier conversation. I walked back to the bed slowly, palms out, like I was taming a wild animal.

"We need to talk about this." I said, and she pulled her legs into her chest, crossing her arms over her knees. It was a favorite position of hers. When her chin was settled on her arms, I sat down.

"We can't…be together right now. It's complicated…" I just then registered that she had figured out something about the pack couples. Sometimes that girl was too smart for her own good. She stopped me mid-lecture.

"So we wait till, what? Eighteen?" I nodded, wondering what she thought about it. "But you are admitting that you like me?"

"LIKE you?!" I burst out, "Claire, you have no idea… Yes, yes Claire. I _like_ you." She smiled at that one.

"So we wait." She shrugged. "Fine. It's less than two years. But there are some conditions." I rolled my eyes, wanting to tell her that only Sam had control over her "conditions", but I decided to hear her out. Partly because this was going so much better than I'd ever imagined and I couldn't stop smiling, and partly because she was being so great about all this I was ready to hand over about anything.

"Fine. Let's hear it."

"Them. Let's hear them. There's more than one. First of all, no more vanishing acts." That one had me grimacing. But she stopped me when I opened my mouth. "Second of all, I want in on more pack stuff." I frowned at that one. But before I could ask what she meant, she dropped the big one on me. "Third and finally, I want to be kissed."

My mouth dropped open before I could stop it.

"Claire, I just told you! We can't-"

"Oh, please. A kiss isn't a contract, nor is it a make-out session! I want an acknowledgment that our relationship has progressed. Besides that, I think I'm being very reasonable about this, and I think I deserve at least that much."

I sighed. "One kiss?" she nodded and I was thinking that I'd need a minute to gather my control. One kiss was going to be hard. I closed my eyes. _Inhale, exhale, inhale-_

"Whenever I ask for one." My eyes snapped open. I was already shaking my head, getting up off the bed.

"No. No, Claire! Deal-breaker." No way would I be able to constantly be on alert for the next kiss. Nu-uh. Absolutely not. I knew Claire, and "whenever I ask for one" would turn really quickly into "whenever I ask for five".

She scrambled up to her knees.

"Hold on, just hear me out-"

"No, Claire. Just…you can't do that. No more disappearing acts, that's fine. It almost killed me anyway. Pack stuff, sure. Come by whenever you want. I'll call you when there's even a whiff of a leach. But there _are_ rules Claire, and they do not have a kissing loophole!" I turned to stare at the opposite wall, putting my back to her.

She sat back on her heels, waiting for me to calm down, but I knew once I did she'd win me over with her fancy private-school logic and huge, multi-syllable words and I'd be putty in her future-lawyer hands. But damn, it would be so good to just grab her and kiss her whenever I wanted…

I knocked myself on the head. I had to stop that, but it was sooooo tempting… I spun around abruptly, surprising her. My eyes flickered to the clock and saw it was only five o'clock. I started walking to the window.

"Give me some time. Just stay here and DO NOT get into any trouble, okay?" Her hand on my arm stopped me when I had one foot out of her room and one in. She looked a little breathless.

"You mean, you're going to ask?" And she looked so excited I couldn't not do what she wanted. I cupped her face, tracing my thumb over her jaw.

"Just stay here." I pulled away and hit the ground running. I hadn't gotten ten feet before I was being knocked in the air and sideways. I slammed down hard on the ground as I heard Claire scream my name.

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A/N: Hope you all enjoyed that little cliff hanger! Thank you so much for reading and I always appreciate your reviews. I don't know how soon I'll be able to put up the next chapter, but keep an eye out!


	7. Chapter 7

I was Phasing before I stopped rolling across the dead leaves. As soon as I did though, my mind was assaulted by what seemed like hundreds of angry, puzzled, and amused thoughts. Simultaneously, another body, Sam's again, threw me into a tree. The tree snapped in two, and I heard bones snap in my ribcage.

_I SPECIFICALLY TOLD YOU TO STAY AWAY IF IT WOUL D BE TOO MUCH! _ Sam was using his alpha voice and I was flattened on the ground in an instant. I whined, but Sam was taking a minute to watch as the past few hours flickered through my mind. I sent up as the last image a picture of Sam without Emily for two days, and he snarled, but backed off a bit, walking around in a circle.

It was then when he caught sight of Claire, who'd just stepped out of her window, and his mind thumbed through the images of us together, coming to the one where she asked to be kissed.

_Seducer._ He thought, and snapped at her. Hindsight tells me that she was still a good ways away from him, and that he didn't intend to do anything, but I was in front of her in an instant, snarling. He had lost control with his own imprint, and he would _not_ with mine. I felt Jake and Seth on either side of me. They weren't even in the same pack as me, anymore, and they knew it was wrong.

Of course it was wrong! I was too irate to even think straight, but Embry walked out of the woods to me, also growling a little.

_Sam! She's his imprint! You can't do shit like that. It's like taking a snap at one of us._

_Well, he's already done THAT this morning, so maybe he's just covering all his bases. _Paul added his piece, slinking from behind a bush. I was still snarling, replaying his lunge at her over and over, seeing red. I felt Claire's hand on my back right as a new smell pierced my angry head. Her parents.

I couldn't take my eyes off of Sam, who'd completely lost my trust at that point, but I saw their faces in his head. They were seeing a werewolf showdown in their backyard, and their baby girl was in the middle of it.

"Okay. Let's just…calm down." Claire's voice startled me. "Why don't we all just sit down and talk about this. Calmly. And with opposable thumbs." She got a chuckle from Jake and Leah, but her voice was shaky. Sam held my gaze for a second, long enough to show he was still Alpha, and the backed off into the woods to change. I got a hint of remorse from him right before he phased.

I was still shaking. Seeing someone, even my pack leader, _especially_ my pack leader, go after her was almost too much. When Sam and the rest of the pack finally emerged from the tree line, I was still pacing in front of her, shaking my head and trying to get the image of her in danger off the continuous reel in my brain.

Dimly, I could hear Claire's parents ask for an explanation. I could hear the sound of the air being moved as Sam and the pack stepped inside. Jacob, Leah, and Seth paused before following. They were as much my family as anyone, and the explaining was going to take a lot of effort.

Then, the door closed, the air was still, and there were only two hearts beating. I could hear the air whooshing out of her in a sigh, and it was only then I was able to look back at her.

We were quiet for a minute, and I remember thinking how odd it was that she hadn't gone with her parents, but at that moment, I didn't even care.

She tossed some shorts into the forest. I swear that girl can read my mind. It was the quickest phase'n'change I think I've ever done.

And then she was in my arms. She was shaking, too, and we stood there for a few minutes. I felt a single tear fall onto my chest.

"I'm so sorry." I was close to crying, too, at that point. I wanted to shake her and kiss her and lock her up in an ivory tower. I settled for pulling her in closer. She had nothing to be sorry for, and I told her so.

"I am." She said, "If I hadn't asked for so much. That's what he was mad about, right? I'm sorry. I did this to you." I could feel her hands skimming the already forming bruises on my back and sides. I had a few cracked ribs, broken ankle, but none of it was worse than her thinking that it was her fault.

I shook my head.

"You didn't do anything, Claire. I swear. This was all me-" but she didn't believe me and another tear fell.

"He barked at me." I stilled. I couldn't think of anything to say to that, because she was actually right. I buried my nose in her hair.

"He tackled _me_."

"He's really scary." And I swear to God I just about lost it then and there. Claire hadn't even been scared of the boogey man when she was four. Claire wasn't scared of anything. But he had done this to her. Controlling my anger, I pulled away to look down at her.

"Claire, he was out of line. He knows he shouldn't have but-" She cut me off again.

"It's okay." She blinked up at me, and the tears were clearing and I could see my reflection in them, and I swear to this day that it's some sort of Claire phenomenon. I can see myself in her, but just so much better, because I can tell that she thinks I am just _so much better _than I actually am.

"Claire, you know I would never… bark or snap at- what?"

She was laughing.

"Quil the last time you scared me was when I was seven you jumped out from behind that tree on Halloween in a gorilla mask." I laughed, too.

"And when you recognized me you came up to me and stomped on my foot…" we had dissolved into giggles and I was struck by how truly incredible my little imprint was.

Literally five minutes ago I had been so angry I couldn't form words, and now this. Only she could do this to me. Only her.

I reached up to smooth a piece of hair away from her face. She leaned into my hand and held my gaze. It could have been this great moment, you know. Epic. I could have told her everything right there. We were so comfortable in this togetherness; I swear that could have been the one perfect moment that changed my life forever.

But I forgot that she was a genius.

She had extra room in her brain to remember that Sam was inside with her parents. She could remember what he was here for, how we had gotten swept up into it. I watched it all play out on her face, and I watched her step back.

"We should go in." She tilted her head towards the back door and I could only nod because I missed her being so close. And she was right.

But walking into the kitchen and feeling so many eyes on us, the only thing I wanted to do was pick her up and run in the other way. Sam stopped talking and I swear you could hit the tension in the room with a car it was so thick.

"Claire, go upstairs." That was her dad. Mr. Young didn't really have time for any bull in his life and even though his tone with my imprint set me on edge a little, he was right. Claire couldn't be anywhere near this.

Her head snapped up and her eyes found mine, but I nodded and her brows flew down.

It was not what she wanted, and no matter how easily she could twist me around her finger, we had to get through this. It was this one final push that would literally make or break us. When she was safely behind her closed door, Sam started back up.

"It's to the point now where we can't ignore the situation. Quil's feelings are too strong and-"

"Are you saying that now is the time you picked to fall in love with my daughter?! She's not even seventeen yet!" Mr. Young rounded on me and I gulped.

"Sir," I find that it's always better to start out with a 'sir', "I didn't pick anything. It just started happening…" Sam filled in where I left off.

"What you have to understand, Blake, is that it's a natural process. Werewolves don't think in terms of age. Claire has almost finished with puberty, and it's instinct to begin to feel this way with our imprints at that time."

Both Mr. Young and I winced at the word puberty. If there was one thing that neither of us wanted to discuss about Claire in front of the pack, it was her hormones. There was a pause as he took it in.

"Blake, we knew this would happen." I've always loved Mrs. Young, and from that day on, Claire's mother was up there with Gandhi and Mother Theresa for me. "We were told, and yes, it's soon, but I'm sure that Quil has no intention of…doing anything…?" She trailed off and looked at me.

"NO! No, of course not!" Mr. Young jumped about ten feet at my very loud denial.

"You see? He won't hurt her. We decided a long time ago that this is what's best for her. It's fate, Blake." Mr. Young looked up at her sadly, but she placed her hand over his on the table and looked at me, straight in the eyes.

"You take care of our girl." And with that, Anna Young became my second favorite person in the world. I nodded solemnly.

"Yes ma'am." She reached forward and shook my hand, and her hers gripped mine, I knew by the strength in it that I had better do just what I had said, or I'd answer to a higher, motherly power. Lucky for me, though, I intended to follow through and then some on my promise.

Someone clapped me on the back and broke the silence. I was steered towards the door without ado, and even though all I wanted to do in the whole world was go up to Claire, details had to be worked out. Because we had to figure out what the pack was gonna do, and where the politics were going to lie and just how to keep it quiet…and because I couldn't really be with _or_ protect Claire without tying the loose ends.

We went back to Sam's, and we could smell the bacon from six miles away. So it was there, crowded around the kitchen table, that I got my new marching orders. He paced back and forth and laid down the law.

"You _will not_ touch her inappropriately. You _will not_ take her on public dates. You _will not_ see her past midnight except if given direct permission. You _will not_ tell her friends about your relationship. You _will not_ forget the pack and its goals. You _will not_ allow _her_ to do these things. You _will not_ let her interfere with pack meetings. You _will not _kiss her-"

"Aw, C'mon Sam! At least let him have that. He's gonna go along with everything else you said." Paul got a mental high five.

"Yeah, and besides, she's the one who asked for it. He'll be keeping her from what she wants. It's unnatural." Jake got a mental check for seven thousand dollars.

"And it's the least you can do for almost taking a bite out of her earlier." I don't even know what Leah was thinking with that last one. Emily's head snapped around from the frying pan.

"You _what?!" _she rounded on Sam with a spatula. Poor guy. Even as pack leader, imprints have final say. He held his hands out pleadingly.

"I didn't almost bite her. I just snapped a little. I was…it was…"

"Uncalled for? Dangerous? Completely irresponsible with _my_ niece?!" She was up in his face, which is hard for someone who's 5'3 having an argument with someone who's 6'4.

"You weren't there! I was just looking out for her-"

"You don't think I have her best interests at heart? Me? Her favorite Aunt?!" No one bothered to point out that she was Claire's _only_ aunt. She turned to me and pointed her spatula at me.

"You can kiss whoever you want." She narrowed her eyes at Sam, but he remained silent. Suddenly Emily and Anna were tied for second place on my favorite people list. It must have been a sister thing. The table around me burst out laughing, jeering at Sam and high fiving me. But even on my fourth plate of eggs, all I could think about was Claire.

When no one was looking, Emily shoved me out the door.

"Tell her hello for me, and that her aunt rocks." She smiled, watching me sprint backwards towards Claire's.

"Yeah she does!" I smiled back, then turned and broke into a flat run.

oOo

Back at Claire's, I wondered exactly how I would go about this. There were so many possibilities. Romantic me wanted to sweep her up with flowers and candy, werewolf me wanted to revert back to the caveman thing from a few days before, but the real me, Claire's best friend, only wanted to talk to her, tell her about how happy I was that this had happened, laugh about Emily and Sam.

When she answered the door, of course, Claire's Quil won.

"You will never ever guess what your aunt did today." I can't tell exactly how much effort I was putting into not just picking her up and squeezing her. I'll go ahead and compare to, like…not breathing for five minutes. _That _takes effort. But maybe that's not a strong enough example, but I couldn't really think about my super-super-human strength right now.

She followed along with the nonchalant thing I had going on.

"She's been known to do some crazy things, betcha I can figure it out."

"What'll you bet me?"

"Ice cream for a week." Of course. But, I've said it before and I will continue saying it until the day I die, I cannot say no to this girl.

"Fine, but we need to talk first." I nodded to her bedroom door.

She marched obediently, and when she was sitting at her desk, door closed, was when I started.

"So you had some demands."

"Conditions." She corrected me. "And there were only three and the third was suspended pending investigation." She slowly swiveled back and forth in her chair, keeping her eyes on me. I looked down at her.

"Pending investigation?" She smiled and for a second, I lost my train of thought. Thankfully I picked it back up pretty quickly. "Ok, ok. So I did the investigating." I couldn't help it. I broke into what had to be the goofiest, love-sick grin known to man. Her eyes widened.

"Wait…like, legit?!" I started laughing at her, but she bounded across the room and ran into my arms. I let her knock me back onto the bed. She pulled her head up to look at me.

"Whenever I want?" She raised her eyebrows.

"Yeah. Just not in public. And you can't tell your friends…"

"Well of course not, that would be creepy for them." She rolled off me, and looked at the ceiling, smiling. I looked over at her, not believing our good luck.

"You need to thank your aunt for this. Really, she was-"

"Wait! I want to guess." My grin got even wider as she sat up. Claire is possibly one of the most competitive people I've ever met, so when there's a bet on the line, everything stops.

She tapped her finger to her chin, considering.

"Does it have to do with a rope?"

"No."

"Cooking?"

"Sure. Kind of." She made a face at me.

"Sure, kind of?! Fine, they don't give me the shiny grades for nothing." She trailed off, staring at me.

"Emily found out about Sam growling at me, almost took his nose off with the spatula and then pulled rank."

I started a slow clap for her. "Wow. That was, freakishly accurate. It's truly amazing." She bowed to me.

"So where's my ice cream?" I scoffed.

"Claire! I don't have ice cream on hand. Especially not double double chocolate with whipped cream and sprinkles. These things take time, money and at least a fifteen minute-"

Then she kissed me. Later, I asked her why then, and she said that she liked hearing me say her name, so she had wanted to, and hadn't I just said that she could kiss me whenever she wanted to?

But at that moment, I was not thinking in any way, shape, or form _why?_ I was actually not thinking anything. At all.

All I knew was the most perfect sensation I had ever felt. It was better than jumping off the cliff, seeing her laugh, seeing her for the first time, making her smile, and Emily's cooking combined. Plus winning the lottery and playing with puppies. You get the point.

My brain just completely shut down. The only thing I needed in the world was for her to be _closer._ My hands grabbed at her, wanting to get her nearer to me, my hands clenched in her shirt, and I started shaking, trying to control some part of me.

I would never phase with her, not her. What Sam had done to Emily was a fluke, and besides, he hadn't been with Emily since she was two, but I could feel the instincts rising up to the surface, every atom in my entire body was screaming at me that this was my mate, my better half, and what the hell had I been thinking for not doing this sooner.

But I didn't hear anything, not my cells screaming at me, not the fan, not the music in the background, not even the whoosh of air out of my own lungs. For good reason.

Claire pulled back, staying close, stroking my face, resting her forehead against mine.

"Quil, breath." I inhaled. She wanted me to, so I didn't have a choice. There was silence for a second. "Ok, now let it out." I exhaled, and finally got the pattern back. Claire still thinks I was joking around that day, but I will swear on anything you ask that she literally made me forget how to breathe.

Every single instinct, need, every shred of self-preserving intuition that I possessed, was suddenly replaced by kissing her. It filled up all the spaces in my brain. There was nothing left of before.

She literally taught me to breathe again. In…out…in…out…

_Claire…Claire…Claire…Claire…_


	8. Chapter 8

_A/N: I'm so glad you guys like the story so far! I've been getting really great reviews and they make me happy! I've still got a few ideas in me, but I could always use more, so if you have any ideas, any little scenarios or even just little thoughts, I would appreciate the help and can try to incorporate them. Thanks so much for reading, guys, it really means a lot that you're enjoying this as much as I am! _

_p.s. sorry it's taking so long! ___

oOo

After that day, I would have sworn that nothing would have ever been better in my entire life, but, of course, Claire never stopped surprising me. Even the very next day, she was out to undermine my expectations, which she does very often.

It started out at like five in the morning, and I know, you're like, "Quil, what the hell are you doing up at five in the morning?!" Trust me, I know, cause even now, I'm asking myself the same thing.

The answer, obviously, was Claire.

It's not what you think. No matter how absolutely in love I am with her, there is very little Claire can do without being naked that will get me and keep me awake at five A.M.

O.k., that's a lie. She wouldn't have to do anything but ask. But regardless I guess we haven't really got to that part of the story yet, the naked part, and I probably shouldn't go into details, but just know, it's out there in the future.

But way, _way_ in the future, cause at this point in the story Claire and I had been "together" for less than 24 hours.

So no, I was not laying awake thinking of her, and no, we were not doing anything that broke our rules. Like most normal people in the world, I was asleep. Really asleep. Like, knocked-out, been running patrols all day and night, completely unaware of my surroundings, werewolf sleep.

But then, suddenly, I wasn't. My eyes popped open in bed and I remember lying there thinking _what the hell?_ Then I heard this tiny little tap on my window.

I shot out of bed and to my window, wrenching the curtains back, suddenly my window was filled with Claire.

There she was, straddling a tree branch, knocking on my window. My TWO STORIES HIGH window. My two stories high window that I accidentally ripped out of the frame trying to open it too fast. Because she was in a tree.

TWO STORIES HIGH.

Claire was laughing so hard she was crying by the time I hauled her into my room and on solid ground. I was still having too many heart palpitations to really think of anything funny at that moment.

"What- Claire… I swear- Why? What?! Why why why?" My hands were shaking and Claire finally finished re-living whatever funny, funny joke she'd just remembered, cause it surely wasn't the fact that she was at my TWO STORIES TALL WINDOW!

"Oh, God! Quil, your face! You should have seen it." She was still chuckling, but flopped down on my bed, crossing her legs and leaning back onto her hands. She was in her pajamas, which then for Claire consisted of a pair of my ten year old sweat pants and tank top. Tiny, tiny tank top.

But that wasn't what we were talking about.

"My face? You mean this face?" I waved my hands in front of my eyes. "The face that just saw you dangling fifty feet off the ground?!" At that point, though I may or may not have been hyperventilating, I was calming down a bit, seeing her seated on something solid.

She rolled her eyes. "Hardly dangling. That branch is twice as thick as I am. Besides, you climb trees to my window all the time." Her cocked her head at me like it was a challenge.

I sputtered for a minute, not believing that she couldn't see the obvious difference.

"Claire! I'm a werewolf! And that was at your old house! Now, I can go around the back and open the nifty little window and step through. I have a front door, you know! There is a doorbell. I have a cell phone. You do not have to risk your life to see me!"

"Again with the fifty feet? I didn't say anything the first time cause you know I can dig the hyperbole, but really? It's hardly even twenty feet! Probably closer to fifteen. Besides, I didn't want to wake Embry up and I called your cell twice."

"Claire, I specifically sleep with my phone right next to my face just so I can hear-" I reached over her to scoop up my phone. Clicking the button to light up the screen, I wiggled it in her face. She sighed and arched her brow at me.

Grabbing the phone, she turned it and shoved it back into _my_ face, which would have been completely ineffective if only there hadn't been a little dancing envelope with the words "Two missed calls: Claire" bouncing on the screen.

"C'mon, Quil. Both you and I know that when you sleep, you sleep, no matter how loud your cell phone is. Besides, I'm making a romantic gesture." My eyes snapped to hers.

"You are?"

A strangled little scream left her and she stood up, pushing off the bed.

"Yes! And you don't even notice!" She tried to push me, but I stopped her hands and held on to them.

"I'm sorry I didn't notice your romantic gesture. I'm sure that a smarter man would have picked up on it. As it was, I was so worried for your safety that I regretfully overlooked the situation, and fortunately for me, you have more than enough brains for both of us in this relationship."

Sometimes hanging with Claire and her rational lawyer talk is very helpful. She paused, squinting up at me. She nodded slowly.

"Nice save, Ateara. A humbling statement, compliment, and you managed to work the word "relationship" in there, which you knew would make me happy." She was smiling now, which made me smile. "I have to say, I'm impressed."

"Well, you know I learned from the best." We stood there grinning at each other like complete idiots for a minute before…

"Kiss." It was a straight-up demand. My smile grew.

"You're not gonna ask nice?"

She just shook her head at me. "Alright, fine. Where?"

She considered it for a minute, but it was just long enough for me to marvel, again, at the amazing person that is my imprint. Really, someone up there had their Wheaties the morning they thought her up. She is completely incredible.

She tapped her cheek, which, even though just yesterday I would have killed to kiss, was not her lips. Her perfect, pink, cupid's bow lips that had been on mine not 15 hours before. Too long, in my book.

But I wasn't gonna turn down any chance she gave, or demanded of me.

Trying to keep my breathing even, I leaned down closer to her. We were still staring at each other, but I closed my eyes when I got about an inch away. I wanted to be able to feel everything.

Still holding her hands, I brushed my lips across her cheekbone back and forth, twice. And it was really good. I mean, my head didn't explode like it had that first time, but her skin was so silky, and she really smells really good, and her hands tightened on mine for a second and I knew she could feel the buzzy/tingly thing that I was picking up on. But then she and her hands were suddenly gone.

"Thanks. That's all I wanted." Her voice was quiet, but she was walking backwards towards my bedroom door. I shook my head, trying to clear it.

"Wait….what?" I frowned at her, feeling like I had forgotten something and knowing I hadn't, but she kept backing out of my room. She smiled.

"I just wanted to see you. And besides, I think we should keep the real kissing for important stuff, right? We don't want to waste them!" I opened my mouth to assure her that, no, really, kissing her at any time for _any reason imaginable_ would be perfectly non-wasteful, but she put her hand up to stop me.

"I'm gonna go. Thanks for saving me from the evil tree." She smiled, "I'll lock the door behind me. Go back to bed." And then I swear she turned around and bounced down my staircase.

After the day before, I had thought that I'd have to be stopping her, slowing her down because of our rules, but it was the opposite. She was keeping me in check. As I said, she was a constant surprise, and absolutely incredible.

And she had wanted to see me… I smiled as I stepped out of my window onto the branch, waiting till she had turned the corner before jumping off of it.

She was right, it wasn't as far as I had thought, but still, I'm perfectly happy to be the tree climber. She could stay on solid ground.

I followed her from a distance until she was home safe. I couldn't just let her walk home alone, but I also couldn't resist peeking into her window to make sure she was there. There was a lump in the middle of her covers, but as I turned to walk away, I heard her say, "Thanks, Quil."

Of course she had known I would follow her. Just like I knew that even though she had laughed at me earlier, she wouldn't set foot on that tree ever again, cause she could tell it scared me.

As I walked home that day, the sun rose on the rest of the world, and all I could think of was my world, wrapped up in her bed, safe and secure because I had made sure of it.

oOo

So that was our first "tryst" as she called it, but it certainly wasn't the last. There were the smallish ones, when she would stay over at my house extra late, curled up against me on the couch watching old movies. There were the times when I stayed extra late at her house, helping her study. And those were actually a lot of times.

Too many times, so that by November, most of our time was spent in her bedroom, no music, no talking unless I was quizzing her, just studying.

It was one night after Halloween that I figured out three things.

One was that unless you are actually in high school, there is absolutely no point in trying to wrap your head around the advanced honors calculus she had going on.

Two was that this year, her junior year, was the hardest she'd ever been through academically. She kept up her super-duper four point five thousand gpa, but it came at a big cost to her.

Honestly it was hard for me to watch. It was like realizing for the first time your parents aren't super heroes. All my life Claire had been the super star at all the brainy stuff. She could read and count and write before anyone else in her class, she had been given awards and titles and little plaques that were hanging in the hallway. But watching her having to make sacrifices, to actually work for what had always come so easily pissed her off, which pissed me off, too.

The third thing in realized was that she was fascinating. And trust me, I'd thought she was fascinating before, but Claire at 16 was something to behold. This is coming from the guy that would watch her take naps or play with dolls just because she was so cute.

But she definitely stepped up her game at 16. I mean she was always beautiful, and that one afternoon with her I realized that she was perfectly gorgeous, but it was the one night I watched her, bent over her AP French book, that I got the picture as to just how freaking phenomenal she was.

I think it was a good solid hour of me just starting at her until she even noticed anything. But then I could see it. She became self-conscious. She didn't look up from her book or her notes, but she was suddenly squirmy.

She tucked her hair behind her ear, she uncrossed her legs, her posture straightened. It went on for a few minutes before she looked up at me, arching her eyebrow.

"Que-est-ce tu veux?" she asked. _What do you want?_ I laughed. And yeah, I had been with her for long enough that I knew as much French as she did.

"Nothing. You're cute when you study, though." She shook her head and went back to her reading.

"Je suis mignonne tout les temps." She muttered. _I'm cute all the time. _And she was right.

She was sitting in the middle of her bed, surrounded by books, notecards, pens, calculators, and more books. Her hair was pulled into a sloppy bun on the top of her head that was leaning to the left. She was wearing my sweatpants again, but she had a sweater on this time, not a tank-top.

I was lying back, my feet by the pillows, watching her.

When she got to something she didn't know or couldn't translate, her nose would crinkle up and she would press her lips into a straight line.

"You used to do that when you were little, you know."

She didn't look up. "Que?" she asked.

"That look you do when you don't know something. You did it when you were learning to talk. And read. And work the dvd player."

She arched her brow even farther up.

"Ouais? Et…?" _Yeah? And…? _ She didn't seem to think my commentary had very much importance to her academics. But geez, I'd been sitting there staring at her for over an hour, and she was so perfect, and there is really only so much of that a guy can take.

"_And_ it used to be really cute." Her head snapped up.

"_Used to be?!" _she asked, abandoning her French. "What the hell is wrong with it now?" Cranky, crabby Claire.

"Well now it's not cute so much as…really hot." I propped myself up on my elbow, invading her study space a little, which I could tell made her feel pretty conflicted.

I knew she was pissed of that I was interrupting her, but I wanted her. And she wanted to kiss me. I knew she did because Claire always wants to kiss me.

And I knew she wanted a break, and if I could giver her that, well, I'd leave a happy wolf-man.

She ran her fingers over her eys, rolling her neck to work out the kinks. She sighed and finally peeked out from beneath her fingers.

And broke into a smile.

Her hands fell into her lap and her head tilted to the side.

"You're a horrible study buddy." I just smiled, knowing I had won. "I'm serious! Aren't you the least concerned with my future? Or my grades? Or the French language…" I shook my head, grabbing her wrist and gently pulling her down to me.

Our faces were close enough that I could see the faint freckles across the bridge of her nose. I started to remember how they used to be more pronounced when she was younger, and they had faded with age, but then her lips were on mine.

Our kisses were slow and sweet, because that's how all of our kisses were back then. They were all me trying not to grab onto her and pull her as close as possible, and her just getting to know the feel of me.

And I just loved it. I love doing anything with Claire, really, but the physical contact was pretty far up on my "can never ever ever live without" list. Right there with talking to her and looking at her, smelling her and making her laugh. You know, the essentials.

Claire finally pulled back, keeping our foreheads together, eyes still closed. She tilted her head up and caught a kiss one last time before groaning and hauling herself back into the little study ring she'd set up on her bed. Her head bent back down over her book as if the world hadn't just momentarily stopped spinning, and the oxygen hadn't been inexplicably sucked out of the room.

But I couldn't stop watching her. We sat like that for about two more hours before she got fed up and slammed her French book to the ground next to her bed. I stuck around for another three, quizzing her on French when she finally gave in to the guilty urge she had to study and then just talking to her.

"It's hard for me to watch this, you know." I said quietly after we had finished with the irregular future stems. She was laying facing me, stoking my wrist lightly, writing the letters out with her fingers on my forearm. She looked up at me.

"Hard to watch what?" she asked. I waved my free hand over all the books.

"It's hard to watch me study?" she laughed. "No one is forcing you to stick around. If you're bored just go."

I shook my head because she didn't get it.

"No, it's hard for me to watch you have to work so hard. It pisses you off." Her smile faltered for a moment.

"School pisses everyone off. That's the point."

"Not for you. I don't like seeing you unhappy. You're too stressed out, Claire, you're straining too hard here." Her smile was completely gone.

"If you think I'm not spending enough time with you-"

"No! That's not it. This is not about me at all. This, like everything else in my life, is about you. You don't sleep enough. You're overworked and I don't like it. _You_ don't like it."

She considered that for a while. "What do you mean when you say everything in your life is about me?" I scoffed.

"That would be what you get out of this conversation. Aren't you-" she cut me off.

"Of course I'm listening! I'm just busy with school. Midterms and stuff. It'll pass. I'm not really worried, but you are because I've never had to put effort into anything before, and you're worried that I'm stuggling, which I'm not, and if you take a step back you will see that this is only one very small part of the world right now, and I will be fine." She squeezed my wrist before shooing me out so she could sleep.

Walking home, I realized that she really didn't get it. She was my world, and right now this was the main thing that was going on. This was the current crisis for me to focus on, to deal with. It was the first time I had to deal with the challenges of our new relationship.

See, because now that we were getting closer to each other, I was so much more attuned to her. I had thought we were close before, but the new level of our relationship magnified her feelings for me. It's a natural evolution of the brain, Emily says, I had to start providing for Claire more than before, in every way, so it's like now the little sensors in my head start sounding off to her ever emotion, making sure I could do just that, provide for her anything she needed.

Even if it's only someone to notice that she's working harder than she used to.

oOo

She was right, the next few weeks were hectic, but soon all the stress and the worry calmed down, and then we were facing the prospect of an entire winter break together.

I woke her up that first Monday morning of her freedom at six o'clock. I woke up and I remember being so excited that we had all this time together, and it was a weekday. It was like a novelty. I jumped out of bed to stare out at the snow as I got dressed. We had gotten a good six inches the past few days, and it was still going down hard outside.

I smiled cause Claire loved snow.

The first time I had ever taken her sledding, she was three, and I was so scared that she was going to catch a cold that I had only let her go down the hill once. C'mon, all that cold wind and snow is not good for a very tiny little girl. She got so mad at me, because she'd had so much fun, that she started crying.

Claire's tears are freaking crippling, I swear. If you could just see them…but I hope you never have to see her cry, because I swear it'll just bring you to your knees, just like it did, and still does, for me.

I let her go down as many times as she wanted, and yes, she did end up getting a cold in the end. But I didn't worry about that kind of stuff so much now.

I mean, ok, that's a lie, I did still worry about it. All the time, but it was a little less frantic than it was back then. I had seen her get through the chicken pox and two bouts of the flu, and yeah, they had both practically killed me with worry, but she was a big girl now, almost seventeen, and then almost eighteen…

But I digress. It was almost six by the time I got the sleds out and was on the road to Claire's, and yes, I ran the whole way. This was our tradition. I unlocked her front door and nodded to Claire's mom on my way up to Claire's room. When I finally got there, I flung the door opened and leapt onto her bed, making sure that I landed just right around her, not on top of her.

"AAAAAARRRRRGHGHHGHGHGHHHHH!!!!!!! Quil?! What the hell?!" She jerked the covers up over her head so when she told me to go away it was muffled, so I pretended not to hear it. I started bouncing a little just to wake her up.

"Claire c'mon! First day of Christmas!" I bounced harder, shaking the bedframe. She pushed the covers off of her face and pretty much freezing my breath in my lungs because even angry and sleepy she was just so beautiful.

My hands were on either side of her head, pressing into the pillow, and she reached out to grab my wrists, stopping me mid bounce. Her eyes looked up into mine, half-lidded and sleepy.

"You suck." She muttered, closing her eyes a little bit more.

"Let's go sledding." I whispered, hoping to lure her out. But one look at the precious little bundle under me, and I knew we weren't going to go sledding for a long time. Her eyes finally closed completely, and I stayed kneeling over her for a few more minutes, just taking it in.

When she sleeps, her hair got absolutely horrifying. I swear I have no idea how she does it, but really, it's like she walked out into a tornado while I was gone, then came back to bed without looking for a comb. But the miraculous thing is that it's still so silky, even with all the knots and tangles.

Right now it was sticking up all over her face and her cheeks were flushed with warmth because her mom kept the house at a steady 75 degrees in the winter. But she still looked phenomenal.

"Claire." I whispered, lowering my head a little closer to hers, trying to get her to wake up just a little. One of her hands left my arm and she put a finger to my mouth.

"Shhhhhhh." She whispered, her eyes still closed. I heard her mom get in her car and leave for work. I leaned my face closer to hers, I could feel her breath.

"Claire, where's your dad?" I asked, still whispering. I wanted to smooth the hair away from her face, I wanted her to wake up and talk to me, I wanted her to go to sleep so I could watch her like I used to when she was little. That's the thing about imprints, you wanted it all. Everything your mate could give you.

"Work." She let out on a sigh, cuddling more into her pillow, which made me smile and was so adorable that I just had to do something. I ran my hand around her face, stroking the silky tendrils off her mouth and eyes, which drifted open.

"We're all alone…" she whispered, arching her eyebrow. I bent down to kiss the tip of her nose.

"Don't get any ideas. I'm here to go sledding." But suddenly I was remembering what it had felt like to sleep in the same bed as her, even we didn't do anything. And she did look so peaceful.

I kicked my shoes off.

"Move over." I said, lifting the covers and sliding in. and I swear it was the most miraculous thing. She scooched over and pulled my arm over her…and then fell asleep.

I know it doesn't seem so amazing to you, but really, I'm still blown away by it. Just two seconds earlier she had been thinking about us being alone together, I had been super psyched about sledding, and then all of it just stopped as soon as we were together.

Even I started to get drowsy after about ten minutes of staring at her, and that's usually something I never get tired of.

I pressed a kiss to the top of her head just because I could before I drifted off. And it was some of the best sleep of my life. Drifting in an out with Claire in my arms, I became aware for the first time of the mechanics of that nice little zen feeling I get with her.

It was the way our breathing matched perfectly, and how no matter what position either of us moved into, we were comfortable and completely matched, like puzzle pieces. The way her smells and heartbeat mixed into mine until all there was was the amazing harmony, that was better than anything I'd ever heard.

And like I said, I was conked out. Nothing could have woken me. Until…

"Quil, c'mon! First day of Christmas!" Claire didn't take so much care not to land on me as I did with her.

I growled at her a little, just to show her I was up, but I pulled the covers over my head. She started bouncing, which didn't have quite the effect as when I did it, considering I'm about one hundred pounds heavier than her. I sighed and pushed the blankets off my face, still groggy.

"When did you get up?" I asked. I knew my voice sounded husky, but I also knew that she liked it.

"Like an hour ago. You were out but good. It's already noon." She at least wasn't yelling anymore.

I groaned again and squinted my eyes at the alarm clock. She was right. 12:15 p.m. I looked back up at her.

"Come back to bed. I'm still tired." I said, trying not to think about the fact that she was straddling me, but my eyes strayed to where she was perched on my stomach. She laughed.

"Don't get any ideas, you. I'm here to go sledding."

"That's my line, actually." I said, smiling. She just laughed.

"You think that's funny?" I asked her, and she nodded, still smiling. I pushed myself up fast, pulling her with me and tackling her onto the bed, her laughing the whole time. I went for her rib cage, which not many people know is the most ticklish part of Claire.

The best part of tickling Claire is that she thrashes around. I mean she really gets a fight in her, but she's cracking up laughing the whole time. She's no match for me or any of my pack mates, but she was getting old enough that she could land a few good hits before we gave up and let her win.

Today I gave up easy, and let her roll me off the bed. I stayed there for a minute, and I could hear her on the bed above me, laughing, both of us catching our breath. Finally, her head popped over the side above me.

"I made cinnamon rolls."

That day just reiterated why we were soul mates. Great sleep, homemade breakfast, sledding, then later, when we were too frozen to go back up the hill, we played video games in front of the fire.

I knew I was the luckiest person in the world, even if she did beat me at Mario Cart. I watched her do a victory dance around the couch as my on-screen character started crying. When she danced past me, I grabbed her waist, pulling her onto my lap. She was still laughing.

"Claire." I said, and she stopped. We were close. Usually we didn't get this close unless we were about to kiss, which admittedly had only happened a few times, but I'd never really gotten a chance to get right up in her face and take it in, ya know?

"I didn't ask for a kiss." She said, swallowing thickly, her eyes roaming over my face as well. I opened my mouth to tell her everything. That I loved her and that she was my imprint and that she was perfect.

The front door slammed open. It was Embry.

"Quil! What the hell, dude? We've been looking for you." His eyes were scanning around the room, and he looked behind him twice. Finally his eyes met mine.

"They're back. The leeches."

That was the first moment of real panic I knew for Claire. I had been concerned, I had been frantic, but never in my life had I been so worried for her actual life. It was the first time she ever saw a vampire.


	9. Chapter 9

At first it wasn't a hugely big deal, ya know?

Claire knew the drill; she'd been around long enough. That didn't mean I was still absolutely petrified for her. I mean, come on! Vampire in the area, girlfriend in my house, there's a certain sense of panic there.

I was up immediately, keeping hold of her waist and bringing her with me. Even when I knew she had her footing, I kept hold of her.

"Claire, I don't have time to get you back home, so I'm going to have to leave you here-"

"Quil, it's ok, just go."

"-but you know where the key to the cellar is right? I mean I know it won't last long if… Okay nevermind. Where's your cell?"

She picked it up from the table. "Right here. Go, Quil."

"Don't freak out if I'm not back. Don't go anywhere. No one comes in or out unless it's me or Jake or someone you know." I let go of her, half-running to the hall closet. She stayed close to my side, knowing what I needed.

"I'm not even going to make a sarcastic comment about people with candy." She said dryly as I lifted the hand gun out of the drawer I kept it in.

"Well thank you for that. Here." I shoved it into her hands and ran upstairs to get some sweats. "What you do is-"

"I know how to use a gun, Quil. You have to go!" I shook my head to clear it. Of course she did. I'd taught her how. I rushed back down stairs, skipping the last five as I jumped in front of her.

"Be careful." We said it at the same time, both breathless. I smiled. "Always." I said, swooping down to peck her lips before following Embry out the door. I slowed until I heard all lock and dead-bold slide into place. _That's my girl._

I phased quickly, catching the pack's thoughts. The vampire had been spotted north of the Rez, but following our smell.

_Blood sucker wants a fight._ Paul came up on my left flank, running hard to keep up with me.

_Well it would be rude not to give him one._ Sam burst out of the trees on my right, soon the whole pack was running. We ran for about five miles before the smell was almost unbearable and we stopped in a clearing. There were two of them, a male and a female.

I've seen my fair share of Vamps, so the skin/eyes/smell thing didn't really bother me anymore, but these…I knew there was something off about them. They were going to be hard to shake.

There were no preliminary words, no evil banter. All of us knew what was going to happen, and so it did. You'd think that five werewolves tear into two vampires would be comically easy, but it wasn't. They were smart, and faster than us, besides that, you never knew what powers they had, so we have to be extra careful with the unknowns.

I won't get into the details of the fight, it was pretty intense. All I'll tell you is that after about thirty minutes, Sam was down with lots of blood and a punctured something or other, Paul broke 2 legs, Embry and Leah were holding off the female while me and Jake cornered the other leech.

His lips pulled into a sneer as he backed into a tree. "Stupid wolves. Stupid, smelly wolves. The only thing is…" His head cocked to the side and he stared at me. His nostrils flared. "You've got a little girlfriend. I like her perfume." I jumped.

Again, I won't go into the details, but let me just say that hearing a vampire have anything to say about Claire is just a little too close to home for me. I tend to get a bit vicious when I have to. And then, I had to.

I whirled around as I heard two loud cracks behind me. The girl had thrown Embry and Leah into the woods, and stalked towards me, but stopped suddenly, seeing her mate at my feet.

Her eyes snapped to mine, and she took a deep breath. "You killed him." Her voice was shockingly calm. I lunged at her, trying to get a hold, but she just danced out of my reach and said, "Let's see how you like it."

And then she was gone. I swear to anything you can think of that I've never, ever seen anything move so fast. I took off running, Emby, Jake, and Leah bolting after me.

There's this crazy moment of calm that happens right before the panic. It's like this huge epic burst of clarity that rips through you right before you lose your mind. This was mine. I was thinking like a million things at one time, in one giant whoosh of pure fear.

_I can't lose her. I've never even told her I love her. Of course she knows, but still. I just need her. Can't lose her. Would I even be able to breathe if she weren't alive? Would I be able to function? I've never been more than fifty-one consecutive hours away from her. And we remember how badly that was. How will I kill myself, then, if I'm not fast enough…_

_NO! Be Fast enough._

After that, I put on more speed, and my mind jumbled into a blur.

In my mind I could see Claire, alone, trapped in the house, with that vampire… I ran faster, but I knew the leech would already be there. With her.

_Calm down_. All the voices in my head were telling me. _She'll be fine. Maybe the leech isn't even going for Claire. _ But that was stupid. Even my most optimistic self had to realize that the scent trail I was following was headed straight to my house, to my Claire.

The good and the bad voices, all telling me different things, just spurred me faster and faster, knowing that the vampire would already be there, telling myself that she wasn't, trying to figure out how in the hell I would be able to survive if Claire didn't.

And then I was at my house. The door was hanging on one hinge, the screen crumpled somewhere in the yard. There was furniture thrown everywhere, rips in the couch, bullets in the wall. The cellar door was missing, I raced down the stairs, but it was empty. The window near the ceiling was open, letting in gusts of freezing air.

I don't remember how I got through it, but suddenly I was out in the yard.

_Where are they? Where are they? Where's Claire? I just want to see her one more time before… that's her smell. She's there. Is that blood? Snow isn't supposed to be red. Oh God that's her shoe, where's the gun? _

And then nothing.

The vampire stepped out from the trees, holding Claire up to her like a hostage, In front of her, with Claire's arms twisted between them, the gun to her precious, flawless throat. I snarled, spit, growled.

I felt the others come around me, their thought buzzing in and out of my brain, trying to figure out what to do, but my mind was taken over by the wolf.

I was stalking forward, not stopping until the leech pulled Claire up closer, tightened her hold. That was all it took to stop me in my tracks.

"She's pretty, your little girly here." The vampire stroked the gun into Claire's hair. Claire flinched, looking at me with tear-filled eyes. Silently pleading with me to help her to…do something. But even back to my senses, listening to the other pack mates toss ideas around rapid-fire, I couldn't come up with an idea fast enough to work.

I whimpered, looked Claire in the eyes, and the vampire laughed.

"Aw! Little puppy can't save his girl. That's the only thing we have in common, dog. When we mate we mate for life. Well now you've taken my mate away, I'm taking yours." She laughed again, "The true poetry of this is that you can't even talk, can you, you stupid little wolf. No heartfelt words, no last minute 'I love you's. Last looks, mutt."

She shoved Claire down in front of me, and that was all the opening we needed. I threw myself on top of her while Embry and Jake pounced.

None of us were fast enough to stop her from shooting, but I was fast enough that the bullet went into me instead of Claire. Just then I didn't even care. I could feel her heartbeat strong under mine, her breathy sobs as she turned her head into my paw, clutching me closer. That was all that mattered.

I could hear my packmates taking care of the vampire, but honestly I didn't care. I stayed carefully on top of her until I felt human hands grabbing at me.

As they pulled me off of her, my eyes connected with hers for a split-second before hers widened with horror and mine went dark.

oOo

The next memories I have are blurry. I could feel something soft under me, then something sharp in my side. I could feel cool hands running over my skin, and I remember wondering when I had phased back. I heard people say things like, "Lost too much blood," and "She can't stay there forever."

I heard Jake and Leah and Sam and Emily and Dr. Cullen. I felt the bruises and scrapes from the fight burn, then tingle with healing. I saw lights go on and off from the inside of my eyelids, tasted water, broth, and the sticky-sour medicine they forced into me.

But throughout it all, I felt Claire. Sometimes her hands, her tears. Other times I heard her voice. I would feel a small brush of air as she moved, catch a whiff of her shampoo. She never lost contact with me. I could feel her fingers stoking over my pulse, cradling my wrist, always with me.

I didn't know how long I lay there, drifting in and out of consciousness until I felt her lips on my bare shoulder. She laid her head on my arm.

"Wake up now, Quil. I really, really need you to wake up." I felt a warm tear slid down my skin and my eyes flicked open.

"I'm up." She jumped a little at the sound of my voice, but raised her head. I laughed at her, but my ribs felt sore. She chuckled, too, but suddenly she was right up with me, hovering over my face, stroking my cheeks and hair.

I reached up to wipe her eyes and she leaned into my palm.

"How long have I been out?" I asked as she sat down on the edge of my bed.

"Two days."

"What?!" I shook my head. "That's not possible! I heal so fast-" she cut me off, shaking her head.

"If you'd been anything other than what you are, you would still be in a coma. You would have died." I reached up to wipe the fresh tears forming on her cheeks.

"Oh, God, Claire. I'm so sorry. I'm right here, I'm fine." I pulled her on top of me, trying to get her to stop shaking and crying. "What happened?"

"You were shot in the side. Your lung collapsed and a bunch of arteries were damaged, Dr. Cullen had to work on you for a long time." Her hand reached down to find my wrist. "It was scary." I sighed.

"Yeah. I'm sorry. I wasn't… I mean that I handled the vampire stupidly and then his mate came after you-"

"How did she know who I was? Where I was?" she tilted her head to look into my eyes. She seemed like she was drinking me in, frantically trying to get enough of me in case I blacked out again. I sighed.

"Claire, I hate to say this, but you reek of me." A pause, and then a laugh. Just what I was aiming for. "Besides, they could smell your perfume on me and tracked it here."

"My perfume?" Her brow furrowed and I pulled her closer, suddenly remembering how she'd looked with a gun to her head.

"Mmm. Your perfume, your shampoo, conditioner, soap, lotion. All of it. It's all over the house." Her eyes burned into mine, she seemed angry about something.

"I don't keep that stuff here. I just use yours whenever I need to." I smiled, tugging her onto my chest, cupping her face in my hands and ignoring the twinge in my side. Claire was more important.

"Well, yeah, but _you_ are all over this place." I reached over to the pillowcase to pluck one of her long brown hairs off of it. "See? You leave stuff behind all the time. The couch constantly smells like you, cause you sit on that one side under that one blanket. The kitchen smells like you because you like to bake cookies there. The carpet smells like you because you like to wrestle me on it. The air in here smells like you because you fluff your hair out. Claire, you are all over this house."

She ducked her head, rubbing her nose against my chest.

"So you're saying that…it's my fault the vampire came here. That she…that you got shot. That-"

"No! I am absolutely not saying that. She would have tracked you down, easy, because you smell like me, too. If you hadn't been here, she would have gone to your house. This was actually good."

Her head snapped up. "You call this good?! The fact that-"

"Yes, Claire. This was good. Just think if she'd gone to your house and your parents had been there? Or Mandy? This way, no one got hurt." She pushed off of me and paced around the bed, pointing to the bowl full of bloody bandages.

"That is you not getting hurt? Bullshit." She was breathing heavily, so upset I could smell it. The fear and anxiety and a little anger. "I almost lost you."

And that just about broke my heart. I mean here I am, shot, freaking out about almost losing her, with her freaking out about almost losing me. It didn't make sense, but that was Claire. Didn't she know that she was vastly more important than I was? She was so worried about me she wasn't even thinking about the vampire. She tried to push me back down when I sat up, but I just pulled her into my lap instead.

"Claire, I almost lost _you_." I muttered into her hair, closing my eyes at having her so close again. I held her tighter. "That would have been… so much worse. You don't even know… When I was running after her, knowing that she was going to you, geezus, Claire, I didn't know how I was…I don't know if I could…" I wanted to say 'I don't know if I can live without you' but I didn't say it. Because I did know, and I couldn't, and also, I had just remembered what else I had been thinking while I was chasing after that leech.

I lifted chin, looking her in the eyes. "I love you."

Her eyes widened and she gasped, but otherwise neither of us moved. I smiled down at her.

"Did you know that?" her lips twitched, but I continued before she could answer. "Because I was thinking about it and just because I'd always thought it was kind of implied, I never really… said it. But I do." She kissed me, softly.

"Of course I knew that. But it's nice to hear." She kissed me again, and if Dr. Cullen had been there, I know he would have broken it up quick because my heart was pounding out of my chest, and I was thinking that it couldn't be good for the stitches, and not caring, because then she said:

"I love you, too." And my world re-adjusted itself for her for the second time in fourteen years. I fell deeper into her eyes, deeper in love with her. There was no going back now. I could feel it and I'm sure she could, too.

Our future together was cemented. Permanently. There would be weddings and babies and rocking chairs and all that, because there was no taking this moment back, and neither of us wanted to.

I crushed her mouth to mine, kissing her harder than I ever had before, not able or willing to rein myself in. We kissed until we needed to breathe, and even then, our lips remained touching while we gasped in lung-fuls of air.

I felt her tongue brush against my lip, and I froze. It was farther than we'd ever gone, because there were rules and all that, and because she was so new at this, and because we had forever. I felt her again, her tongue stroking hesitantly inside my mouth, I pulled away an inch or so.

"Claire." My voice broke, "You can't. I do not have that much self-control. I swear, if you start that now…" I sighed. "God, Claire." And I pulled her closer.

We both needed so much from the other that night, and as we drifted to sleep, I thought we'd both gotten it.

"Do I really smell like you?" she asked sleepily, snuggling closer to my body. I smiled up at the dark ceiling.

"Yeah. You smell like us." I kissed the top of her head as her breath evened out.

The thing about Claire is that she's so possessive. She guards what's her so fiercely. I didn't really understand how impacted she was by my attack until later, when it almost broke us.

oOo

"What does getting shot feel like?" I rolled my eyes and pushed a cup of coffee across the table towards her.

We had put ourselves into a nice routine after the attack. We were both so shaken up about almost losing the other, it was hell to not be together, not to be reassured over and over again that she was alive.

At night, I would help her study, or just talk to her or watch a movie or whatever, and leave. Later, I would sneak into Claire's window, and we would fall asleep. We usually woke up before the alarm and we would just stare at each other, taking it in, ya know?

It was those moments that were almost my favorite. Because she was so close, like we were sharing the same area of space, not even willing to be separated by a few inches. When I heard her parents wake up, I'd sneak back out, making a big show of walking into the front door and asking if Claire was up yet.

The next part we'd play by ear day by day. Sometimes Claire would come bounding down the stairs, already done with her hair and make-up, and other times she'd make me wait. I'd eat breakfast with her, drive her to school, and go up to the garage to work.

At 3, I'd pick her up, and we'd head back to her house to do homework. I usually left for dinner, but sometimes not, then I'd be back to start all over again. This was morning, and both her parents had gone to work.

She slid her hands around the coffee mug and gulped it down. About a month before, during her midterms, she'd pulled so many all-nighters and late-nighters that she'd had to turn to caffeine.

I'm not going to say that it was an addiction, because that would be too strong a word, but I'm going to go ahead and say that coffee and Claire had started a pretty intense love affair that wasn't going to end very soon.

She drank it black, every morning, and sometimes at night if she had a test. She drank it with chocolate in it when we went to get a snack after school, she drank it with pumpkin in it on Sundays at the coffee shop, she had vanilla in it if she was feeling bored, she put sugar in it when she needed a pick-me-up, eventually she started getting coffee ice-cream sometimes, instead of her usual, which freaked me the hell out, let me tell you.

This is the girl who has been eating the same ice cream since she was two years old.

But anyways, to Claire, coffee was like her life's blood. And it kind of still is, but anyways.

"It feels like getting shot." I stood up and began washing out our cereal bowls.

"Well if you're going to be vague about it." She gave me the look.

I sat down across from her and took a breath. Even half hidden behind her coffee cup, she was stunning. And she wanted to know what it felt like to get shot.

"Well, I don't remember much about it." Her brow raised. "I know you don't believe me, but let's remember that I thought you were going to die. I'm small fries compared to that." Her coffee cup smacked to the table, sloshing over a little, but I kept going.

"And I know you don't like that, but in my head that's the way it is. What I can remember though is that it went kinda numb, then it hurt like hell. Hot and cold at the same time, it was hard to breathe, um…" I trailed off. It really was hard to remember it. "I mean it felt like there was a projectile bullet shot into my side."

I looked at her. She was un-amused and fidgeting with her coffee cup. When she finally looked up at me, her eyes were a little red.

"Well, let's be sure that it doesn't happen again. I wouldn't want you actually remembering. God knows how you'll describe it then." She blinked and looked away, finishing her coffee.

I got up and poured her another cup, snapping the lid over the top.

"Time for school." She stood up and I didn't move, keeping our bodies close. She looked up at me for a long time before she tapped the side of her neck, right where her pulse was.

I lowered my head obligingly and kissed the spot, feeling the life moving under my lips. Her head ducked into my shoulder, bringing us closer. I pulled back and she tapped her lips. Three times.

That made me smile, so she got four kisses, even though she only asked for three. I drove her to school and she was really quiet. That was the beginning.

Apparently word travels fast in the vampire world, because suddenly they all ascended on Forks and the Rez. The couple we'd killed were apparently pretty hot stuff, and we were suddenly swamped with keeping them all away from the people of the town.

The only times I got to see Claire were when I would collapse onto her bed around 4 am, and when I was hurt. We didn't talk much either times. The first because I was exhausted and it was so late, the second because the more and more leeches there were, the more and more cuts, scrapes, and bruises there were.

She got progressively quieter as fewer days went by when she didn't have to sit with me on the couch while my bones healed, or the blood stopped flowing.

She wasn't the first imprint to have a problem with the werewolf life style. It's hard for them to sit home while we go out and do God knows what, getting into who knows what trouble, and possibly not even coming back.

They all had different ways of dealing. Kim worked on her dissertation or graded papers, Renesmee would read, Emily cooked. Sometimes they would all meet somewhere and wait the fight out together. Waiting for all of us to come home.

Claire didn't have a way of dealing with it yet. So she just got quieter and quieter until one day, she just couldn't take it anymore. We were sitting watching TV while my shoulder re-set after being popped out of place and my sprained ankle healed.

"If I asked you to stop, would you?" it was so sudden, so quiet, I blinked at her for a minute before it sank in. I swallowed. I had known this was coming.

"Claire." I stopped. "It's…complicated." She frowned.

"So is Sudoku and you still do those." I smiled. "It's not like I'm asking you to, like, stop talking to the guys or anything. Just to… stop running with them." I was shaking my head.

"This is who I am. I'm here for one reason, to protect this place. It's what I'm made for. Look, I know it really bothers you, but…I don't have a choice." She exploded. She launched of the couch and paced to the wall before turning back around.

"WHEN DID I HAVE A CHOICE?! Who thought to ask me if I wanted all this?"

"Claire, you chose to be with me-"

"I NEVER CHOSE THAT! I NEVER HAD A CHOICE." I tried to ignore the knife in my chest and pay attention to what she was saying, but that one knocked me down.

Claire is so level-headed. That's why she's so great at arguing, she never loses it, never hits below the belt, keeps her head together. But that, that crippled me. My heart stopped, breathing slowed, stomach bottomed out, but she kept going.

"You've been around since I was two, Quil. I've never known life without you, because you never let me. You're with me every single day. I can't even function if I don't see you. What kind of relationship is that? I'm completely dependent on you, and you're being so irresponsible with my life!"

"Your life?" I wheezed, still trying to make my lungs work. Besides that was wrong. If there was one thing in the world I took care of it was her.

"YES! You're it for me. You're what I've got forever, for the rest of my life. I know that, I understand that, but that doesn't mean I like it!" She scooped a book up off the table and chucked it at me head. For a second I thought about letting it hit me, just so she'd feel better, but my good arm reached up and grabbed in anyways.

"You…You don't even know what it's like. Not knowing if you're coming back or not? It will kill me. It's _killing_ me! And you just come over here like nothing! So yeah, Quil, you never had a choice, this is your life. But this is mine!" She pointed to the gauze she'd used to wrap my ankle. She grabbed her coat and started towards the door, I hopped up, hobbling on my bad ankle.

"Claire, wait. Listen, I just…" she whirled around.

"Quil! Just let me be, okay? Just go heal." She shoved her arms into her jacket.

"Will I see you later?" she paused, looking somewhere over my shoulder. And I really though that would be it, you know? Like she would take a breath and listen to herself and just calm down and stay. Like maybe she would just shrug and say, "ok, just kidding! Let's watch a movie!" then go make some popcorn. But she didn't.

"I don't know." She said it so quietly that I almost missed it. But then she was out the door.

It was our first huge fight. The little spat over her school skirt was nothing compared to this. I swear I thought that was the end. I mean, she was asking me to go back on my very nature. She had to know better than that, right?

_A/N: I tried to get this up for you guys by Halloween, but I missed the boat a little. Sorry! But here it is now! Please review and maybe give me some suggestions. Thanks so much!_


	10. Chapter 10

_I know, my dearest, darlingest readers, that I am a horrible person. I haven't posted in months, literally. I haven't deserted you, I promise promise. I am just so absolutely sorry. If you can find it in yourselves to forgive me, I would be forever grateful. _

_I vow to never let this much time to ever pass between chapters. Forgive me, my dearest, darlingest readers; writer's block effects us all eventually. But having said that, I'm still a horrible person for making you wait so long. Please enjoy this complimentary next chapter as a token of my gratitude! Reviews are always welcome!_

I stood there looking at the door she'd just left for an hour. My ankle hurt like hell, my shoulder was throbbing, and I'm pretty sure I was crying. I finally gave up.

She really wasn't coming back. She wasn't opening the door, reaching out for me. She wasn't saying, "I'm so sorry" or "I didn't mean it". She was gone.

It was the first time I'd never known exactly where she was. I mean the area she was in. I would have to hunt for her, sniff her out. She'd asked me to leave her alone, but I just couldn't do that.

_One more thing that goes against my nature_, I thought, realizing for the first time ever that I hated being a wolf. At least in this moment.

But grabbing my coat, I realized that if I weren't a werewolf, I would never have met Claire. I mean, maybe, but I wouldn't ever have realized she was so perfect for me. I would have grown up, gotten married, probably had kids by now, and she…

I winced as I stepped out in the snow, partially because it hurt, and partially because she would probably be with Chet, or Brad, or some scum guy who is so not worthy of her.

The snow made it easy to follow her tracks, which was a blessing. And they headed straight to Mandy's house. I stopped at the kitchen window and my heart broke again.

Claire was sitting at the table, head in her hands, sobbing.

"Claire, what happened? You have to tell me. Did someone do something? Or…"

Claire shook her head.

"I c-can't t-tell you-u. It's j-just-t Q-Q-Quil. That's a-all I c-can sa-ay." Her voice broke and she continued to cry. So hard. She had to gasp in breaths like her lungs were shutting down and starving for air. Like she couldn't live through this.

Like her first day at school, so uncontrollable and so much worse. And all I could do was stand there thinking, _I did this to her. I made her cry like this._

And all I wanted to do was barge in and just hold her and make her believe it would be okay, but she had told me to leave her alone, and I did everything she asked me to, except for the one thing she really needed.

I turned and started walking blindly. I was a horrible imprint. I literally couldn't provide what my mate needed, and she was a sixteen year old girl.

There are some that would say she was "just" a sixteen year old girl. But I guess, looks could be deceiving.

I looked like a twenty-five year old. I was thirty. She looked sixteen, but on the inside… Growing up with me had made her grow up too fast, I think. It's like I forgot how young she was, because she was so perfect. I kept thinking she was just like me, but she wasn't. She isn't.

Was I forcing her to be something that she wasn't? I didn't know.

Normal teenage girls were dating and drinking and sneaking out at nights. Claire had kinda skipped that step. She would never have it, I realized, never have a normal life, all because of me.

She was absolutely right in everything she'd said. I forced her into this, She never got the chance to decide for herself. Never.

I looked up and I was outside of Sam and Emily's house. I knocked on the door before opening it. They were sitting on the couch watching the news and I slumped down in a chair. Emily sat up.

"Quil? What's wrong? You look…" apparently she couldn't find the right word, and never finished, I buried my face in my hands.

"I think I broke Claire." Silence. I heard the squeak of the couch as Sam sat forward.

"What do you mean you broke Claire?" His voice was so calm, but he was about to lose it. Hadn't I promised just a few months before that I would do everything to treat her right and keep her safe?

I lifted my head.

"She wants me to stop changing. She…she doesn't want me to be a werewolf anymore. She started screaming and throwing stuff-"

"Throwing stuff?!" Emily sounded so disbelieving. Claire never threw stuff, she got upset and then got over it. This wasn't the Claire we knew.

"Yeah. Threw a book at my head. Stormed out, told me that she never chose to be with me and she resented me and to leave her alone." I felt my eyes getting wet, the tears starting to fall again. "Guys, I don't think she wants me anymore." It tried to wipe my eyes, but the tears kept coming so I just kept my hands there. Blocking my face, like maybe they would block out this whole night.

More silence. Then more squeaking as I felt Emily's cool hand on my neck. I saw her exchange wary looks with Sam, neither speaking for a long time as I leaked, just like Claire. Just sat there and let the tears fall, not making a sound.

"Quil…" she knelt down in front of me. "This happens to everyone. It's really hard for us to… adjust and understand your life. Just…give her time. Maybe that's all she needs..."

"And if it's not…" My head jerked up to look at Sam. But he never finished his sentence. I did it for him.

"And if it's not, I say goodbye. Because that's what she wants, and I have to give her what she wants, because I can't give her what she asked for."

Sam could only nod, because I was right. And now I had to face the very real possibility that I may never see her again.

My chest throbbed and I curled into myself, making my huge body somehow fit into the armchair I was in. Emily was still there, still trying to…comfort me, I guess. But she would be the first to know that imprints can't come back from this. From losing each other.

"Do you…want anything?"

"No. Just… I wish it would stop." I sat there for who knows how long, and just wished everything would stop.

The world spinning, my lungs, heart, breathing. I wished the snow would stop. That the memories of Claire playing over and over in me head would stop. That my chest would stop hurting, or my hands stop shaking.

That Sam would stop talking on the phone. That Emily would stop trying to offer me food. That the howling outside the window would stop. That the phone would stop ringing. That Embry would stop trying to move me to the couch.

That Leah would stop sitting there silently, not knowing what to do. That my skin would stop hurting. That Claire's words would stop revolving in my head. That I would stop being a werewolf. That Jake would stop coming around smelling like Renesmee, or Jared stop smelling like Kim, or Sam like Emily. That Dr. Cullens sickly sweet smell would stop burning in my nose.

And once, for one quick, stupid, illogical moment, I wished that I would stop loving Claire.

And then there was a prick.

And then everything stopped.

oOo

Now I would not recommend coming out of a drug induced sleep by yourself. Especially in a foreign bed, with a dry mouth, a sore arm, and still-wet eyes.

Because you get to lay there, for one perfect moment, and wonder what happened, until it hits you again and you have to re-live the pain all over.

And you remember that your mouth is dry because you've refused to drink anything. And you're not in your own bed, because you're in your pack-leader's guest room. And that your arm is sore because Dr. Cullen has been jacking you up with enough drugs to sedate an elephant for weeks at a time. And your eyes are wet because you lost your soulmate.

And all you can do, all anyone can do, is lay there and let the incredible amounts of pain wash over you and try not to completely fall apart.

After a while, I heard the buzzing in my ears. A while later, I separated the little noises into voices. So many voices downstairs. Talking about me.

"Jake, it's been three days. We need him out with us. The vamps are going crazy out there!"

"I know, Sam. Just… you saw him. We can't. Not yet. What if this happened to you and-"

"I know you are not about to even imply in any way that Emily would do this to me."

There was silence for a second.

"All I know, is that if Nessie did this, I would…God, I don't even know If I'd still be alive, you know."

There was muttering from the other wolves with imprints.

"Jake." That was Leah. "Listen, I just think-"

"Trust me, you have no idea what you're talking about."

"Dude, you never even heard what she was about to say!" Embry.

"Well, whatever it is, she doesn't know what she's talking about. She doesn't have an imprint. And honestly, I don't see how she even fits into this conversation." Paul.

"Screw you! She's apart of this pack." I wondered why Embry was defending Leah so much, and then wondered if Dr. Cullen could put be back to sleep, because I realized that that was the first thought I'd had in days that hadn't been about Claire.

And just like that, I was out again. I woke up a few hours later. Someone was yelling downstairs and things were breaking. I wondered if the vampires had found us and if one of them could come put me out of my misery. Then I was unconscious. Again.

It's amazing, how the body handles pain, even the emotional kind. When I woke up the next day, the house was silent, but I could hear breathing somewhere downstairs. The kitchen probably. There were two voices, but it took too much energy to separate them, so I just laid there and waited for the next wave of sleep to come. Instead I got Embry.

He opened the door slowly, walked in so normal, like I wasn't catatonic. He sat down next to me, I barely registered his weight on the bed.

"Quil. This has to stop. The pack needs you." I kept staring at the open doorway. "I…I know this is hard, okay? But, we can fix this. You can fix this. You want to be a wolf, right?" He paused as if he really thought I would answer. My unfocused eyes fixated on a flicker of shadow in the hall.

"But are you going to stay with…I mean of course you're going to stay with her, but what are you going to do? Think, man. There has to be a solution. You've done nothing but sleep for the past five days. Surely you've worked something out?" I could tell he was trying to help, but he, like me, couldn't find a way to get around Claire's ultimatum.

I kept staring at the doorway, which was now, suddenly, filled with Leah.

"You have to talk to her, Quil." Her eyes burned into mine. I didn't know what it was about her, the way she smelled different, or how she seemed different. The way she was looking at me, the way she was standing, or the way Embry turned to look at her, but I knew she understood.

"She doesn't want to see me." My voice cracked from not being used for five days. Leah stepped into the room.

"She does. The way you look at her, she has to know she can't live without that."

"She says she wants to. She says-"

"I don't give a shit what she says. She's your imprint. Make it work." I didn't really know what to say to that. It was so Leah. To see it in black and white. But then again…

"You don't really understand. It's…it's an imprint thing." What happened next was so sudden, so unexpected. Embry jumped up and paced around angrily.

"What the hell?! Why do people just… just assume stuff? Like we don't know what we're talking about? Really? Well we've lived it through your stupid love-sick heads and even now-"

"Embry!" Leah stepped up and grabbed the back of his shirt, stopping him. But I barely noticed. I was slipping back under. To where nothing happened, no one yelled, and there was just the black.

oOo

When I woke up again, I didn't have the luxury of not knowing what was going on. I was still in Sam's guest bedroom, on my side facing the window. It was dark outside. But instead of wanting to cry or go back to sleep, I was confused.

I know, right? I knew what was happening but I was confused? Doesn't make sense, but I'll tell you, right then, I didn't even care.

Because I smelled Claire.

I could feel her cool arms wrapped around me, her face nuzzled against my back, her breath between my shoulder blades. Her feet were tangled up with mine, her fingers stroking my chest.

For the first time in weeks I could breathe. I know you've never drowned before, or had a lung collapse or anything, but trust me, it's absolutely terrifying. To not be able to catch your breath, to feel your lungs trying to work, and fail is the worst thing I've ever had to go through.

But to suddenly be able to inhale. To fill your lungs for what seems like the first time in months….indescribable. I sucked the air in, feeling it mingling with her scent.

"Hey, you." She whispered into my spine, scooting even closer to me. My heart was in my throat. After convincing myself I'd never see her again, it was maybe the best thing I'd ever heard. I sighed.

"Hi." I whispered, too. I was so afraid I would scare her off again. But the shock was wearing off and I could notice something wrong with what I was smelling.

"Quil…I'm-" I turned around, and I lost my breath again, just looking at her. But I could read the look on her face, and I couldn't let her take the fall for this.

"You're not about to say you're sorry. You did nothing. It's just that I can't give you…" I trailed off. Where would I even start with this one. I couldn't give me what she wanted, needed, asked for-

"That's a lie. I just think it's hard, being so human while you're so…" She started, but stopped again.

It was awkward, not knowing what to say to each other. We'd never had this problem, even before Claire had learned to talk we could communicate perfectly. I shook my head a drag her closer. We had to start from scratch.

"I missed you." I muttered into her hair, and even saying it aloud was a little painful. "I missed you a lot." Claire sighed.

"I really missed you, too. It freaked me out when you didn't call or anything. I thought you would." She pulled back to look at me, almost like she was accusing me. Almost. I sighed, but I smiled, too. Claire was so bratty. And I'd made her that way.

"I…I thought you didn't want me to." I paused wondering how she'd take that one. As she constantly does, she surprised me. She laughed.

"Yeah, and since you're pretty much a slave to my ever whim, that would stop you." I cracked a smile, too, even though I couldn't really see what was funny. She broke off her laugh with a tiny sigh that almost broke my heart. She nestled back into me.

"I guess it's just easy to forget that other people don't have relationships like these." She drew a figure eight on my chest with the tip of her nose. "There's a give and take, you know? Like…Yeah you're a slave to my every whim, but I have to realize that you aren't my actual slave…you know? Like, you were created for something else. You're not _just_ mine."

"I'm completely yours." I muttered before I could stop myself. I felt her smile against me.

"Maybe." She brushed her lips across my neck. "But maybe you're important to other people, too. Leah was telling me-"

"Leah? What were you doing with…" But then I realized why her smell was off. It was all mixed up in Leah's scent. And Embry's. I felt her go still beside me.

"Oh, well…It was Leah who convinced me to come talk to you. Not that I needed much convincing. I was crazy without you. I haven't been to school in three days." I frowned. "It's been hell, Quil." I pulled her even closer, pressing my nose to her hair and diving past Leah and Embry's scent to the pure Claire I knew was under there.

"She said you haven't been running with the pack and you guys were in the middle of a huge vampire crisis and that they could get hurt without you and it kind of dawned on me that…that maybe sometimes the pack has to be more important than me."

I opened my mouth, but she cut me off.

"And I know you'll deny that up and down and to China and back, but really, Quil, I realized that I already know I'm important to you, and…you're important enough to me that I have to accept your life. I _do_ accept your life." She squeezed me tighter, and I just laid in my own shocked silence.

No wonder I was so epically in love with her. No wonder I forgot pretty much daily how young she was. I felt like a silent bomb had just exploded into my head.

"And, yes, I did think of that all by myself." She whispered. And I couldn't help it. For the first time in days, I laughed. Hard. Hard enough that she started giggling. Then we both lost it. It was like a purge of all the crap that had gone down these past few days. It was all about having her back in my arms again, and her accepting what I was, and me realizing that nothing would ever get in our way. So we laughed.

And when we were done laughing, we kissed. A lot. We kissed sweet and slow and hard and desperate and over and over and over. Until finally, she was drifting off to sleep.

"Claire, you need to go back to your house." I whispered. She sighed and nuzzled her way into my shoulder.

"Make me." She muttered, almost asleep. I drew a breath, watching her settle in.

"No matter how much I love that you're okay with the pack stuff now…" I started out, not quite sure how she'd react to what I was about to say. Her eyes blinked open at me. "No matter how much I love it, I still need you to know that it makes me feel like shit to not be able to give you what you want. I'm, like…completely inadequate. I can't even explain how-" She stretched up and kissed me, hard, her tongue peeking out to sweep across my bottom lip.

"All I want is you." She settled back into the little nook she'd found somehow in my shoulder. "The rest is just details." She whispered, finally succumbing to sleep.

The next day, after going back out with the pack, a slipped into her room around two a.m. The vampire had been fairly easy to get rid of, and Sam had told me they were getting less frequent. I slipped under her comforter, hearing her tiny groan at the cold air. I pulled her close into my chest and before I covered us completely with her blankets, my eyes caught on something on the desk. A ball of yarn.

While Emily cooked to deal with the hunts, and Kim graded papers, and Renesmee read, my Claire took up knitting. I grinned and pressed my lips into hers, waking her up. She groaned into the kiss.

"Will you make me a scarf?" I asked, almost unable to keep from kissing her or running my hands over her body. Here was proof that she'd meant what she said. She was dealing with my life.

She grinned against my mouth and reached her fingers to brush along my jaw.

"You keep kissing me like this, and I'll make you and entire room full of scarves."

Around two thirty, she was asleep and our feet were so tangled up I couldn't tell which ones belonged to me or to her. I have to say, though, I didn't particularly care about the location of my feet at that moment. I was just happy to be with her. Ecstatic to be with her. I pulled her closer, knowing with complete and absolute certainty that we'd never be apart again. So far, we haven't been. Not even for a day.


End file.
